Once More, With Feeling
by WhatsMyNomDePlume
Summary: Exes and co-workers Edward & Bella are sent to investigate the strange happenings in Forks, but they might drive each other crazy figuring out what's going on in the town. And between them. Humor/Romance.
1. It's All Coming Back to Me Now

** Once More, With Feeling  
**

**Summary:** B & E have always had a spark between them, though they're now ex-flames. But their latest assignment- to investigate the strange happenings in Forks- is about to light a fire under both of them. But it's just the town...right? Canon couples. M. Romance, humor.

_This disclaimer will be posted once and applies to the entirety of this story. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. It is not be posted anywhere else without the express permission of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.  
_

* * *

**Prologue.**

There are many types of magic in the world. There's the type of magic between a man and a woman—the sparks and stuttering hearts, the sex and the heat. There's the type of magic in a smile between strangers, linked in a moment by their one simple action. There's even magic in a lonesome moment, where a sinking sunset or a beautiful vista births intangible dreams and indescribable feeling.

And there's the type of magic that none of us are quite sure exists. The magic that goes bump in the night. The magic that gives you goose bumps and prickles on the back of your neck. The magic that keeps your nightlight lit well past childhood. You know… not magic but Magic.

It's a debated, nebulous idea, this Magic. Both in its existence and its content. You're not sure it's real and if it is—where does it start? Where does it stop? If there are ghosts in the world, are there zombies? And if there are zombies, are there witches? And if there are ghosts and zombies and witches, then there must be spells and curses and voodoo. Right?

That is to say, if ghosts even exist. If any of it exists. You have your doubts.

There's one very big reason that you—and the majority of the world's population—doubt whether this Magic exists. And that reason is called the Paranormal Investigative and Supernatural Services Division. While part of the FBI, PISSD operates completely covertly—most civilians, and a large number of agents, are completely ignorant of its existence, with good reason.

Think of them as the Mulder and Scully for the new millennium. Minus the creepy music. Okay, maybe more Ghostbusters than X-Files.

PISSD's main goals are to facilitate the existence of supernatural creatures and management of paranormal phenomena in so that they a) do not cause mass panic and/or impending pandemonium and b) protect the rights of the creatures from exploitation for scientific purposes. Their edict on sprite reproduction is the reason leprechauns are confined to Ireland (not by choice for those randy little fellows, believe you me.). Their superlative work in the field of poltergeist communication paved the way for the peace treaty between wraiths and zombies in the Catskills. (Rumor even has it they were the department called in to certify that Miley Cyrus was, in fact, not a banshee.)

We digress. The Division is fairly good at what it does. The PISSD can't fight against religion and beliefs and lore, and it doesn't attempt to. Its point is not to suppress the otherworldly aspects of the world, merely to make sure a harmonious balance is kept. Most interterrestrials, as they are called, are in no hurry to reveal themselves. They prefer to keep their identities and abilities secret, and the Division helps them do that.

Chances are, you name the belief or urban legend, and there's a very real, very fantastic creature behind it. From Big Foot (or Yeti, as he prefers to be known) to that old bat, Vlad, the Division helps maintain an open and respectful rapport with all its subjects.

A subdivision of PISSD focuses on investigative services. These are the brave, smart agents who go out into the field to collect information and if necessary, take action towards a phenomena or creature that has not as yet been documented. Many times, the investigative services do nothing more than debunk myths perpetuated by humans (they're a bit like Scooby and the gang with that). But occasionally, they run into something brand new, the likes of which requires in depth research, new classification and new protocol, among a plethora of other concerns.

Of course, a majority of the agents are still human (though, slowly the bureau is catching up to PISSD's progressive attitudes and agreeing to hire non-human agents). And with these very human agents come some very human problems: love, pride, hurt, happiness—just because these agents deal with the paranormal doesn't mean they are magically (not Magically) devoid of the normal highs and lows of everyday life. PISSD sees more action than just that of the supernatural kind. It's kind of like a soap opera—moments of fantastical reality mixed in with the everyday afflictions and banalities of living.

And so we catch up with our hero and heroine, both Special Investigative Agents. Like centuries for a vampire, like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of their lives.

**Chapter One.**  
It's All Coming Back To Me Now  
and yeah, I'm still pissed.

Bella Swan slams the folder shut and lets out a huge, irritated sigh. She's been filling out paperwork ad nauseum, and after these last four cases, she's reached her breaking point. All were vampire impersonators, all were false alarms. The nation's latest obsession with vampires has proved to be a pain in the division's ass.

Generally, most pop culture products don't get their stories—be they about witchcraft or werewolves or demons—straight. The misinformation benefits PISSD as it creates a false trail for conspiracy theorists to follow. (A school for witchcraft? Clearly, they've never met some of the witches Bella's dealt with; no one would _ever_ accuse them of being educated.) But as protocol dictates, if there is reasonable suspicion to believe that an otherworldly force could be present, the division has to investigate. And damn, if these vampire enthusiasts aren't giving the agents a run for their money. Some of them are actually getting their information right—the pale, sparkling skin, the lack of fangs. The biggest misconception seems to be that all vampires are beautiful—if they'd ever laid eyes on Cauis, they would know that isn't true.

So when she is informed that Director Aronson wants to meet with her, she is doubly pleased. Once, because it means that she can, at least for a few minutes, escape the drudgery of paperwork, and the second time because she's hoping it means that Aro, as his agents call him, is ready to finally give her a new assignment. It's been more than six months since the "incident" and a month since she's been off probation, but she's yet to go out into the field for more than a perfunctory status check on their more well-behaved subjects. Even when she's found something juicy, like that warlock who was cursing his girlfriend's exes with STDs, it's been snatched out of her hands and reassigned to someone else.

She knows everyone is leery of her after the last case. She knows everyone is doubly leery of her since _he_ came back, two months ago. But she is a professional, damn it, and she doesn't think that one mistake, one lapse of judgment should derail what could amount to be a superlative career.

So with every clack of her one-inch heels down the hallway, Bella imbues herself with more confidence. She nervously smoothes out the wrinkles in her uncomfortable yet professional pantsuit as if being un-ironed could be a legitimate objection to her getting a case. And just as she rounds the corner into the waiting area in front of the Director's office, she says a small prayer to a deity she isn't sure she believes in for the strength to deal—and if necessary, plead—with Aro.

No sooner has she finished thanking that deity for listening to her prayers does she look up and mutter an indignant, astonished, "Fuck me!"

"Been there, done that," comes the insolent, drawling reply. There is only one person whose apathy can cause such absolute fury in Bella and, of course, he is sitting on the white leather couch in front of her—well, their—boss' office.

Edward Masen.

"What are you doing here?" she hisses at him. She knows him well enough to see that, beneath the cool façade of indifference, he is seething at the sight of her. Her hatred is hardly unrequited.

"I work here. You may not have seen me at my desk a lot because _I_ am field rated," he taunts. Bella debates between sticking her tongue at him and giving him the finger. Figuring the former as too childish and the latter as even more unnecessary obscenity, she chooses to combat him with her words.

"I'm field rated, you jackass." So her words include name-calling.

"Funny. Wouldn't have known it from the way you've been a desk jockey for the last six months." She hates him but still desperately wants to be able to imbibe that haughty tone into her every word like he does.

Bella takes a long, good look at the man sitting in front of her. He is a study in contradictions—the pristine, perfectly pressed suit and the messy, almost artful hair. The arrogant slouch that belies his passion for the job. The self-satisfied smirk that—well, okay, that doesn't contradict anything. He is a rather smug bastard.

And the worst thing is that it is with good reason. He is one of the top agents in the division. In fact, before the "incident," he and Bella were locked in a passionate rivalry of one-up-manship. That wasn't the only passionate thing they had been locked in (embraces, cupboards, his car, an ATM vestibule) but that's tangential, of course. Up until he had left for his long-term assignment in Brazil and she had subsequently gotten involved in that hairy mess, they'd been the cream of the crop. A dream team of sorts—if you could call it that with the constant competition, sexual tension and fierce rivalry. Okay, maybe a nightmare team is more apt.

But now she's struggling to prove herself and he's basking in the glow of being the Golden Boy. She may be just the tiniest bit bitter. She's seen him since his return from Brazil. All that did was to remind her of Edward's actions—and one big decision, in particular—before he had left. Each time she's sees him, the hurt decreases but the anger doesn't. This is the first time they are actually talking—if you can call it that—and all that hurt just radiates from her. It disconcerts her, the flicker of attraction she still feels, mixed with the urgent, off-putting flood of hatred. He is, without a doubt, attractive. Anyone with eyes can see that. (Never mind that Gianna, Aro's assistant, who is more legs than anything, is demonstrating that she can see it, too.) No, what irks Bella is that she has no idea whether Edward is still attracted to her. He plays it so cool she could nickname him Iceman. She, in comparison, feels like a goose. Like she is boiling and overheating, hot under the collar and bothered, too. Like he has lit a fire under her, igniting her rage and sparking her arousal.

"I meant, what are you doing _here_? At Aro's office." She tries to ingrain a sense of icy indifference in her tone, but she simply can't. There's nothing about Bella that is cold. She is earth tones, caramel and chocolate hair, warm, brown eyes. Even her ire is molten, like lava.

"He called me up here for a meeting."

"Well, he called _me_ up here for a meeting," Bella replies. The petty, childish part of her that seems to rear its head whenever Edward is around hopes that her meeting is first. Just so she can win this set of the mind game only she and Masen understand. Edward is about to open his mouth—no doubt to retort because whether in war or love (and those lines are very, very thin), these two can never resist each other—when they are interrupted by a slow clap that emanates sarcasm.

"Well, congratulations, geniuses. You've figured it out! I've called you _both_ for a meeting." The voice is silky slick and carries the force of the snap of whip. Director Aronson is standing at the door to his office, eyes roving between the acerbic aggression of Bella's stance—hands on her hips, facing Masen—and the sardonic, feigned nonchalance of Edward's slouch. "Get your asses in here."

They both rush toward his office, Edward's height affording him enough advantage to catch up with Bella. They reach the door at the same time and wage a silent war over who will go in first. Finally, Edward stands to the side to let Bella and chivalry win this round.

Aro rolls his eyes. Life would be too simple if his two top agents actually acted like adults instead of competing alpha dogs or, worse, children. It is a good thing he relishes challenges because these two can make even someone as imperturbable as Aro crazy. He has never seen two people more ill-fitted for each other—Edward with his tendency to charm the pants off, well, anyone, Bella with her sleeve always wrapped around her heart—and yet, they had still been more bearable when they had been ripping each other's clothes off. But no, they had to have gone and ruined that, too.

But Aro is not Director for nothing. His eyes don't twinkle for lack of knowing every single thing that is going on with every one of his agents—sometimes before they themselves know. He has observed enough of Swan and Masen since the day they stepped into training that he can read them like the bad romance novel they are. And so, while others—particularly the man and woman seated in front of him—might call him crazy for his next move, he is merely setting up the pieces on his chessboard. Aro is a grandmaster and his people are his pawns. If he knows his game—and he prides himself on knowing his game—Edward and Bella will be king and queen soon enough.

He grabs the file on his desk and tosses it toward Edward. "Masen, this is your new assignment. Case #3025. It's something brand new; we've never seen anything like it and so we're going to need our best to investigate." As Edward practically preens under the praise, Aro watches the two carefully, eyes darting back and forth between the two. They're his best and brightest—he's just waiting for them to figure out just what's going on.

"Thank you, Aro. But with all due respect—why is she here?" Edward asks. This is what makes Edward a good agent. His ego is insufferable around Swan, but that's to be expected with all the open wounds and salty comments being flung between them. But his instincts are great and more than running headfirst, looking for answers, he asks the right questions. Aro glances at Bella. She has her own strengths. She's tenacious and, despite that one episode, demonstrates good judgment. Her strength is that she does care and it makes her passionate and thorough. But she could use a good poker face. It doesn't take someone as skilled at reading people as Aro to see that Bella wants to punch Edward, and the more damage done to his pretty face, the better.

She is seething. The ass couldn't pass up any opportunity for a jab at her, could he? And it isn't like they have anything to hide from their boss—all know that Aro knows all, in an utterly terrifying way. With his aged white hair, parchment-like dry skin and twinkling eyes, he is like Santa Claus' evil twin. And she is pretty sure Aro sees his agents when they are sleeping and knows when they're awake. And he _definitely_ knows if they've been bad or good. As she turns to Aro, she begrudgingly admits to herself, that she, too, is wondering the answer to Edward's question. Aro would never have called her to the meeting just to throw a case at Edward and, by extension, in her face. So that has to mean that…

"No!" Both Bella and Edward reach the same conclusion in unison and explode in a flurry of protestation.

"After everything that's happened—"

"You've got to be kidding me!"

"Is she still even field rated?"

"I just told you I was!"

"Yeah, because I'm going to believe what you say."

"Yes, well you do have a tendency to underestimate my capabilities."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Just that—"

"Enough!" Both bickerers fall silent immediately. "Yes, Agent Swan and Agent Masen, you will be working on this case together." He holds up his hand and glares, squelching their protests just as they start. "Speak. One at a time. Like rational adults and the fully trained agents you are. Otherwise, you're off the case and on paperwork duty."

"Well, we all know Bella's good at that," Edward hisses.

"Masen! Watch it. I said act like adults, not assholes," Aro admonishes. Edward takes that as his cue to speak first. His chivalry is selective to doorframes, apparently.

"Seriously, Aro, we can't work together. We can't even sit in the same room without wanting to kill each other. We're just going to get in each other's way and hamper the investigation."

"For once, I agree with Edward. We're incompatible. And since Edward has_ just_ returned from a long-term assignment a little while ago, I think I should just take this case, get another partner and go with it."

"Hey, why do _you—_" Edward began.

"Swan, the only thing I should be hearing coming out of your mouth is an astounding amount of ass-kissing. You've been off probation for a month—I could have waited longer to send you back in the field, but I need _you_, specifically, for this case." Bella shoots a taunting smile at Edward and gives herself a mental thumbs-up. "And Edward is the best agent we have, so he's on this case, too." Which turns into another finger, aimed at the man sitting next to her. "What I don't understand is why you two seem to be under the impression that anything I say is negotiable. Has it ever been?" Both agents shake their head like students admonished by their teacher. "That's right. My word is law. Masen, Swan, you're on this case, together. If I hear even one syllable of something that sounds like a complaint, I'll have you both on desk duty—_together_. Am I being clear here?"

"Crystal."

"Yes, sir."

"There's something strange going on in this town," Aro explains. "It's got no precedent, no visible causes and this could either be something completely new or nothing at all."

"What kind of interterrestrial genus are we talking about here, Aro?" Edward asks.

"None. We're dealing with humans," Aro tells his two surprised underlings. "Just some strange patterns in behavior that were significant enough to raise red flags. Like I said, it could be something paranormal, it could just be a bunch of people acting like idiots. You two are rather good at the latter, so I figured this was well suited for you."

Bella is confused. Interterrestrials are her area of expertise. That's why she had been assigned to the case that had led to her probation. She hasn't dealt with paranormal phenomena in a long while. "Not that I'm complaining or negotiating," Bella hedges, "but is there a particular reason you've finally decided to let me go back into the field with _this_ case? You said you needed me specifically, but apparently not for my specialty."

"Sure is, Swan. Masen, open that file and tell us where you two are going. And then tell us who your on-site jurisdictional contact is," Aro instructs. Edward flips through the first few pages inside the files, frowning as he quickly locates the requested information.

"Our site location is Forks, WA. And our contact is…" Edward trails off as he looks at Bella, for once no challenge in his gaze, just incredulity. "Charlie Swan."

Bella's mind reels. "My father?" Her long-estranged father, whom she has seen maybe ten times since her mother divorced him when she was three?

"Yes. I thought your familiarity with the location and a connection would help you blend in and extract information more easily. Small town folk, they don't like strangers, but they only need to know you're distantly related to someone they know for you to stop being one. Use it to your advantage. And your father—from his records, he's quite an upstanding officer. He's definitely an advantage."

"But… how…" Bella sputters and then shuts up before any syllable of dissent slips from her mouth. If she turns this case down, Aro will make sure she is filling out paperwork for the next six months. But it's going to take her a few minutes to get used to this. She's going to be seeing her father. She doesn't know whether she's more nervous about that or the fact that the reason is because of work, as opposed to daughterly affection. She can barely remember Charlie from the handful of memories she has of him. What she can remember is that he has never missed a birthday or a holiday, always sending cards and presents. He endured two of the most awkward weekends in history when he flew down to Arizona for her high school graduation, then California for college.

All signs point to Charlie being a good guy—so why on Earth has his daughter inadvertently ignored him for most of her life?

Edward notices the look of disbelief and deep thought on Bella's face and decides to leave her alone. It's not just because Aro will have his ass if he makes anymore smart-aleck comments, but he won't admit that to anyone—even himself.

"Identity details, cover stories, background on the investigation, accommodation and arrangements, everything's in there. Read it, learn it, burn it. We'll debrief this afternoon, and you two are off to Forks in the morning." Aro looks at the pair of dumbfounded agents in front of him. "Did I stutter? Get out of my office!"

And so they do, Bella clutching the pencil in her pocket so hard she snaps it, Edward holding on the folder that will now dictate the next few weeks, if not months, of his—their—life.

Between his and Bella's rather torrid past relationship, their icy-cold current one and her issues with her father, things are complicated enough—and they haven't even looked at the details of the investigation. Edward shakes his head as he and Bella make their way down the hallway.

This case is going to be interesting, to say the least.

* * *

_** giant thanks** to: quothme & moonlightdreamer333 for betaing, daisy3853 for pre-reading, all three for putting up with me (and everyone else who does). _

_ and_ you _for reading. do share your thoughts. if I can keep all my a/ns this short, it'll be a miracle.  
_


	2. My Heart Will Go On

**Once More, With Feeling**

**Chapter Two.**

My Heart Will Go On  
being thoroughly irritated with you.

"Is Aro kidding with this?" Edward practically snarls as he roughly flips through the pages for a millionth time, as if they could have magically changed since he read them last. "I mean, this is just his sick way of getting his giggles, right? Of all the cases, he assigns us _this_ one? For _us_?" He slams the file shut. When no stinging retort comes, he looks up at his co-worker. His partner, he begrudgingly corrects himself. He's bewildered by Aro's decision—and mildly curious about his motives, though Edward can't imagine how he'd ever find them out.

But what is disturbing him most is that as they studied and then memorized the details in the file, Bella has been completely silent. Edward doesn't know what to do with a silent Bella. He knows what to do with Bella's smart mouth—things ranging from verbal to obscene. He knows how to deal with Bella shouting, whether in anger or in ecstasy. But in the six years they have known, possibly loved and since hated each other, he's never had to deal with this stunned, silent woman in front of him.

So he tries again. "I mean, this could either be an entire crock of shit and a complete waste of our time or we could be trying to head off a pandemic." Still no answer. "That could take over the world." Nothing. "Then we'd all be doing stuff like these crazy townies." Nada. He wonders if she's maybe just not listening to him. "I mean, your fa… Chief Sw… the contact has put together some pretty worrying evidence." Still, she stares at the file, giving no indication she's heard a word of his babbling. "What exactly is going on in this place?" He decides to test her. "Sometimes, I like to wear women's underwear." It's quick but he sees it, the flicker of her eyes, straining against the urge to meet his, the quirk of her lips, quick and almost imperceptible. She's listening. He's pleased. "What kind of bat-shit crazy town are you from, Swan?"

That gets a response. Bella's head jolts up and she glares at Edward. "I'm from Phoenix. I'm _not_ from Forks. I left when I was three, I don't even remember it," she snaps. Edward grins back at her, knowing his reaction will just further fuel her infuriation. He gives a good argument—that's why he starts them so often. And Bella doesn't fail him. All it takes is a little prodding and he has his girl back. Well, not his girl… and okay, he doesn't have her… well, you know what he means.

"Yeah, well don't tell Aro that."

Bella looks at Edward like he has two heads, neither of which has a brain. "I wasn't planning on it. The only thing I'd rather do less than go out into the field with you is to sit in this damn office with you. It's the lesser of the two evils, emphasis on the evil," she mutters. Edward chuckles to himself. Sometimes, a lot of times, he winds Bella up because he knows how to. And because he can always count on her to react to him. It has always been that way, even though she reacted—and he teased—in different ways when they were dating. Well, they had never dated, so perhaps, seeing each other is a better way to put it. Really, seeing very specific parts of each other is probably the most appropriate turn of phrase.

It's been more than six months, though, since they have even spoken to each other outside of the basic work required formalities, so Edward doesn't expect this to be easy. Bella is like gasoline, utterly combustible. That's when she lights up, shows her hidden strength. Too bad Edward likes playing with fire. He's never been one to shy away from confrontation or a challenge, and Bella combines the two nicely.

The thought flashes through his mind that they might actually kill each other on this case before an ice-cold hand plops down on his shoulder, startling him out of his musings. He looks up to see Marcus, the first non-human agent the division ever hired, standing behind him.

"Hey, Marc," Edward greets him. Marcus is the head of the Vampiric Relations sub-department and their primary liaison to that world. Many years ago, he used to be a bloodthirsty, ruthless vampire overlord, practically royalty in their world before he gave up drinking human blood. To this day, no one knows how Aro got Marcus to come work for him but there are rumors, ranging from blackmail to Mephistophelean deals (in which, Aro, their boss, not Marcus, once ferocious destroyer of human life, is the devil).

"Edward, Bella. You two… again?" he trails off, his cultured, proper voice implying things that would be improper to say out loud.

"No!" they both exclaim in vehemence and unison. They glance at each other for a second, with mirrored looks of irritation, before turning back to Marcus.

"We're working on a case together. Just doing the prep work, we'll leave tomorrow," Edward explains. "What are you up to, Marcus? Plenty of vampire-related work these days, huh?"

Marcus snorts, and somehow, even that sounds refined and cultivated. Bella swears that sounding like the pinnacle of propriety is part of vampires' vast array of abilities. "Foolish plebeians, all of them. When will they learn that capes nor fake fangs make one a vampire?" Marcus' accent is, after all these years, understandably unidentifiable, a perfectly pronounced mix of American, European and condescension.

"Speaking of," Bella begins. She shuffles around the piles of folders on her desk and hands Marcus a small stack. "All filled out. Just need your signature, then straight to Aro."

Marcus frowns as he quickly flips through them. Between the powder-white skin and aged, yet somehow flawless face, his frown looks daunting, and Bella can see the terrifying overlord that once sucked the blood of thousands, maybe millions, of people. And then Marcus says, "Did either of you happen watch last night's True Blood?"

"How can you watch that and not be angry at the misrepresentation of your own kind?" Bella asks. Edward merely raises his left eyebrow in amusement at Bella's ability to find a fight in everything. She's a girl after his own heart. In more ways than one.

"It's fiction, Bella. Someone's ludicrous imagination working overtime. I just watch it for the… " He trails off for a second. "What _is_ that phrase they use on the True Blood forum I read? Oh yes. The 'lulz'," he says.

Edward and Bella exchange a look. There's no need to describe the emotion behind it: they've just heard one of the most powerful, regal creatures they've ever encountered, who is, in fact, millennia old, use Internet chat-speak.

"Besides," Marcus continues, as if he uses the phrase "lulz" every day. Maybe he does. "A creative, if somewhat gratuitous, television show is infinitely preferable to those idiotic philistines I deal with everyday who think dabbling in Renfield's Syndrome puts them on par with immortals." He rolls his eyes, the bright yellow-gold disappearing into pale lids before fixing on the two pair in front of him. "Anyway, if I don't see you two before you leave, good luck. I'm sure we'll hear… things."

As he glides away, both Bella and Edward cringe. Marcus's silence says as much as his words and is an obvious reference to Edward and Bella's former working—and then some—relationship. The last time around, everyone had heard about every little thing that had gone on, thanks to their contact in the office, a sniveling, nosy little junior management underling who put the "Alec" in smart-aleck.

Really, they had been quite a team. He was clinical and exacting; she was the more human, feeling element. He had innovation and she had focus. And both of them were as hard to shake off as a niggling cold. That, of course, had been their professional rapport. Their personal one was much the same—he was playful and perpetually up for something new; she was the voice of reason. He was passionate and hungry and horny and… okay, she was too. They'd had great rhythm, great balance (both in bed and out of it) which helped them maintain their success in their job. They never let it get too heavy, never said anything too serious—at least, not to each other, not out loud.

It all came crashing down with one decision, though. Edward left for Brazil, taking Bella's better judgment with him. Then humiliatingly, the "incident" occurred, and while Bella wasn't sure how much Edward was aware, or cared, she knew he knew enough to be able to lord it over her on this case. After all, between the two of them, she's the one with a disciplinary record. The old Edward had challenged but encouraged her, never once demonstrating that he thought her ability was any less than his. She doesn't think she can expect that out of their current working relationship, which is basically a series of insults and one-up-manship. No way Edward won't throw his superior record—which doesn't necessarily make him a superior agent—in her face. A big part of her wants to throw a tantrum, yell and scream at Edward, tell him that they are done professionally. Unfortunately, they're not and in their line of work, a tirade like that would get her fired.

"Heard you two were going into the field together! Talk about history repeating itself," the whiny, buzzing, annoying voice of Alec filters over to them, as he walks by the table they're sitting at. "Of course, I won't be your communiqué liaison this time around, but still." Speak of the idiot and he doth appear. Edward rolls his eyes—he feels like Aro has put them on display, and everyone in the office wants to come get a look before the exhibit is taken down tomorrow. Really, despite the strange, downright unbelievable content of their work, nothing spreads faster than good old office gossip: who is sleeping with whom; who has not been invited to what social gathering; who has sprouted feathers after being bitten by an angry witch bird called a strix… the usual.

So as Bella and Edward prepare for their meeting, they smile and bid farewell to the rest of the department. They're due to depart in the morning and the little remaining time will be usurped by Aro, before going home to pack and prepare. As with every job, the less glamorous parts are significantly less entertaining, for them as well as us, so we'll just skip past them.

When Bella and Edward get to the foyer outside Aro's office, they know something is up. Gianna's not at her desk—and that only happens when Aro sends her away. And Aro only sends her away when he's dealing with the incredibly confidential, unimaginably important clients. They sit down silently, side by side on the couch placed on the left of his office's door, for once not arguing or at odds with each other. They're united under their natural curiosity, and they both lean to the side slightly, at the exact same angle, toward the door. They can hear snippets of the rather heated conversation.

"Yes, as a god, you will be given the utmost…" filters through the door. "Can I put you on hold for just one second?" After a second's pause they hear Aro yell, "Goddamn gods!" Another short pause and his slick, business voice is on.

"Did you hear that? He said 'god', he's talking to a god!" Edward whispers excitedly. Bella shushes him and he frowns.

"He's on the phone," she observes from the periodic, almost timed gaps of silence. Edward shushes her back and she frowns at him. Just as she's about to speak, Edward pokes her knee, shutting her up.

"Yes, we'll make sure," they hear Aro say. "Yes, we know where to contact you on Mt. Olympus."

Edward absentmindedly squeezes her knee in excitement. "Mt. Olympus! We're dealing with the Romans here. Who do you think it is?"

"Hades?" Bella suggests.

Edward snorts. "And here I though Aro _was_ Hades." Despite herself, Bella chuckles. Then her face falls.

"Nah, it can't be him. Hades wouldn't be in Mt. Olympus, Hades would be in…"

"Hades," Edward finishes for her, nodding in agreement.

Aro is still speaking behind the door. "Yes. You're absolutely our number one priority." His voice is getting quieter as the conversation is nearing its end. Both Edward and Bella stretch more in the direction of the entrance to the office. "Yes, of course, Q."

"Q," Edward parrots in an excited whisper. He's closer to the door and is repeating in case Bella can't hear as well from next to him. "You think he's talking to Quiritus?"

"But why wouldn't he just called him 'Janus'? Same with Quirinus, she said she prefers Juno," Bella replies. She frowns. "I can't think of any other Roman gods whose names begin with the letter 'q'."

Edward turns his head to look at her, mouth hanging open slightly. "You've met Juno? I never knew that!"

Bella shrugs nonchalantly. "Yeah, I once had to run to Italy for a quick search-and-rescue. She was pretty cool."

"Juno was _pretty cool_?" Edward sputters. "That's ridiculous, Swan. You can't meet the Queen of the Olympians and say she's 'pretty cool.' That's like saying that basilisk we dealt with was a pretty big snake. Or that unicorns are just horny horses. Or that—"

"I grasped your use of understatement _pretty_ fast, Masen, what's—"

"My point is that surely you have better adjectives than 'pretty cool'. Use your words, Bella." Bella turns her head to look at him, completely ready to do just that when suddenly, simultaneously, they realize how close they are, leaning in the same direction at the same angle, Edward's hand forgotten on her knee, noses inches apart. Even if they aren't quite comfortable with each other again, their bodies don't seem to share the sentiment.

They jump apart just as Aro flings the door open and fixes a suspicious eye on their postures. "Get in, cretins."

As they walk in, Bella hears Edward mutter, "Who knew? Aro can rhyme." She suppresses a chuckle as she remembers just how much Edward irritates her. Still, he does know his way around a snide aside.

Aro is in an extra foul mood, no doubt thanks to the conversation he just concluded. Being director of the division, he is the highest level of authority, which means he can treat and talk to anyone however he wants. How he wants is usually somewhere between rude to downright offensive. Even now as he's screaming for Gianna, Edward and Bella know better than to interrupt to inform him that she's not back at her desk yet.

"Damn it. How hard is it to find a secretary who has a pair of legs _and_ a brain? Apparently impossible," he snarls, pacing behind his desk. Edward snickers and Bella glares at him. "For fuck's sake, knock it off, you two. I have no interest in watching your pigtail-pulling, playground romance today. Or ever."

Bella has so many things to retort. First, that there's no romance nor playing between her and Edward—any pulling or pushing is meant to inflict harm. And moreover, if Aro has no interest in seeing them together, why the hell did he assign them on this case? He has some sort of endgame here and it's got her spider senses working over time. But Aro has always played his cards so close to the vest that his ace is in his pocket, so for now, unless she wants to be the first agent to be kicked off a case before actually starting it, she's going to have to shut up about her suspicions.

Suspicions that are only further deepened by Aro's instructions and an especially long-winded, in-depth perusal of the case. Rather than giving them the usual "get it done right and get it done fast or get out of my division" speech, he's stressing the important of keeping this case confidential.

"Investigation of the source is important—we want to find out what in Hell is going on in Forks, if it's supernatural or just a bunch of idiots acting like… well, you two used to." Both Bella and Edward cringe as if on cue. "But your main priority is containment. No one should know there's anything going on up there—this stays between you two and Chief Swan, you hear me? Containment. That trumps all. Containment. What was that, Aro? Containment. That should be on your brain all the time—containment." Edward would roll his eyes if he was sure that Aro wouldn't reach across the desk and slap him—something that has happened before.

"So Chief Swan has the rest of the information, case reports and research you'll need. You should have both received your cover ID's—if anyone asks, you two are from the EPA, there to check acidity levels in the Hoh and Sol Duc rivers. That means no running around, flashing your badges when investigating and questioning the townspeople. Remember, above all else—"

"Containment," Bella and Edward supply, in unison. Aro nods, apparently placated, only further adding to his strange behavior. Normally, these meetings last about thirty seconds—twenty seconds for Aro to threaten his agents' job and well being if they screw up the case and ten seconds for him to kick them out of his office with his usual flair. But today, not only has he rehashed every aspect of their investigation, even though it was clearly outlined in the case file, but he seems almost anxious.

Before either of them can dwell on it or make the mistake of questioning him, Aro unceremoniously dismisses them by saying, "Alright, get out of my office. I'm sick of your faces. Go home, pack, and try to wake up with an ounce of something resembling professionalism, okay?"

And they're off.

Bella dwells a little more on Aro's strange instructions early the next morning, waiting for Edward at the airport. But she's only a few minutes into her musings when Edward finds her and they make their way through the check-in process.

Bella has never seen Edward in anything but one of his many exquisitely tailored, supremely coordinated suits. (She's even him seen him wearing his most appealing one—his birthday suit.) When they worked together before, he used to always be dressed to the nines, whereas she used to traipse around in whatever was most comfortable for her—usually a flannel shirt and jeans. So she isn't surprised when he arrives ironed, starched and pressed at the airport. Fitted to perfection on his perfectly fit body, today's suit is deep blue with light grey pinstripes, and he's wearing a matching grey shirt inside. His tie is pewter and in a perfect Windsor knot. In contrast, Bella is wearing jeans and well-worn plaid button up. She doesn't like how off-balance and unprofessional she feels, at first.

She's nervous; she can feel it like there are little relay runners in her blood, sprinting and surging from her drumming fingers to her chewed-on lip to her tapping toes, little runners making her sweat a little, making her heart beat faster, her breath a little shallow. There is excitement, too, of course. She's always loved her work, the natural curiosity that makes her so good at it is like a little machine in her head, always whirring. There's something to be said about the life and the world that is summarized so well in the nature of her job—it is completely unpredictable. Just when you think you've got the cadence of it, along comes a new drummer, with a new beat, a new song to sway to.

But in this case, there's so much more than just the excitement. It's less than ideal—first, that she, more than anyone, has got a lot to prove. She's better at living up to high expectations than she is working to raise them and she's extremely anxious. It's putting her on edge, making her quick-tempered and defensive, fraying at her nerves and shredding her own confidence. She's got a lot to prove to a lot of people—starting with Edward, even though, to her surprise, after his initial jabs, he hasn't brought up her field experience inferiority.

Add to that she's going to have to return to Forks and work with her father. It's not that her father is terrible or incompetent. In fact, to the contrary, he's got a sterling record and was even offered a position in a bigger department, which he turned down. He's the ideal type of liaison they could want on a case, except for one very not ideal fact: they're related. She has no idea what to predict from their interaction—and she doesn't know what she feels more weird about: an overly warm reception or an openly hostile one. If she knew Charlie, she'd know he wasn't prone to overt demonstrations of emotions in general. Then again, if she knew Charlie, this whole paragraph would be a moot point.

And then, as if all that isn't enough, she's paired with Edward—proof that Aro is a bit of a sadist. Of course, the benefit to Edward is that she knows he is beyond competent and that they've worked successfully together. But that is overridden by the minefield of events that have pushed them on opposite sides since. Their current alliance is almost martial and she can only hope they can find some middle ground, a Switzerland of sorts, where they can get their work done. Never mind the militant comments she never misses an opportunity to throw at him, or the fact that she does think that he might just be an axis of evil.

In demonstration of her lack of confidence, she's already wondering, ten minutes into their flight to Seattle, if she should have dressed more professionally. She could have worn one of her suits, or at least, dress pants and a button down, instead of ripped comfy jeans. However, later, when they land and pick up their rental car and Edward is loosening his tie and top buttons, clearly uncomfortable and looking more rumpled than the consummate professional he likes appearing to be, she feels much better. His discomfort plays a rather large part in that.

The tension is thick between them—forget a knife; it would take a machete to hack through this. Since they can't feasibly ignore each other, they've simply been needling each other since the morning.

First, they argued over who got the aisle seat and who got the window. It took the air hostess to tell them that since Edward was ranting about wanting the window while Bella was wailing about being claustrophobic that there was a simple solution to their argument. Then, to the joy of their fellow travelers, they shut up. But that didn't mean they were at peace—no, now there was the silent war they waged, knocking each other's elbows off the armrest they shared. There was the ridiculous argument in which Edward tried to carry Bella's bag and she accused him of being a chauvinist, to which Edward retorted that he'd have to think of her as a woman for him to be a chauvinist (a blatant lie considering he clearly does think of her as very womanly, since he's slept with her). Then… well, he said, and then she said and everyone around them thanked God when they finally exited the airport to pick up their rental car.

And now, they're trapped in that car with each other, nothing but the road and radio—both completely unentertaining—to distract them from each other. It bothers Edward even more because he's driving and he hates driving in silence. As if reading his mind, Bella speaks. "Say something, it's too quiet."

Edward snorts. He's just been thinking the same thing but he can't miss an opportunity to rile her up. "Jesus, Swan. When I talk, you tell me to shut up. When I shut up, you tell me to talk. Are you ever satisfied?"

Bella, perhaps not having an answer, stays silent. And of course, Edward can't deal with that now, can he? So he continues, smirking and slipping on his sunglasses as he says slyly to himself, "Well now, Edward, you know the answer to that."

"Jesus Christ, Edward! Do you ever just not say the worst thing you can think of?"

"You're the one who told me earlier today that I wouldn't know a sense of propriety if it slapped me in the ass. Which would be very improper, by the way."

"That was the point. It was an attempt at irony."

"Attempt harder."

She turns toward him and glares. "Listen, Masen," she begins. He grins inwardly, knowing from experience, that whenever Bella pulls out the 'command + last name', she's getting ready for a fight. He relishes it. She crosses her arms just as Edward glances over, intending to get a good look at her expression.

He gets a good look at something else, though, as one of the buttons on her shirt comes undone due to her jerky movement.

Before she can continue and he can just start leering, he turns back to the road and says, "I said '_at_tempt', not 'tempt,' Swan. That's not very proper." He keeps his eyes off her for the most part, with great effort, but can't help but sneak a peek. Or four. He's a man. He likes breasts, in general. Bella's breasts, in specificity (what he can remember of them). He motions with the jerk of his chin to the gaping view of her cleavage she is inadvertently providing him. She gasps in horror and quickly turns to the other side, trying to button up as discreetly as possible.

However, Edward has made Bella go silent again and he doesn't like it. It seems they're either shouting at each other or silent and he definitely prefers the former. He knows why Bella is angry—he cast the first stone, choosing to leave like he did. But they both lived in glass houses and her actions thereafter merely justified that he, in fact, made the right choice. If he had stuck around, Bella might just have shattered him. He's not as angry as she is, but maybe more hurt than she knows, which is why he allows himself to engage in the battle of twits they constantly wage—it's a good outlet, a great way to get all the things they never said and fling it in each other's faces.

But he hates thinking of that, thinking of the bad times. Edward is an optimist, a believer, which is why he is so devoted to his job—it reaffirms him. And he was never as professionally satisfied, not even in the assignment in Brazil, as when he was working with Bella. So though he's not about to raise a white flag—because he likes arguing, engaging, irritating her too much—he does hope they'll be able to keep it together long enough to remember the kind of success they once had.

"Do you remember that chick with the aeromancy?" Edward asks, recalling one of their very first cases.

"Oh yeah," Bella says, with a sardonically drawling reminiscence. "She thought she could predict the future through telling the weather."

"I mean, to an extent, she could. She predicted that we'd need an umbrella," he concedes, sarcasm tingeing his words.

Bella snorts. "Too bad she only told us that _after_ it started raining." He starts laughing, a snicker that turns into a full-bodied guffaw as he remembers Bella's constant irritation with the doll-like girl who insisted that she was a meteorological Miss Cleo.

"I wonder what happened to her," Edward muses.

"She became a carnie last I heard. Called herself 'Nostradame'," Bella replies. "Can't help but think she might have finally found her place in the world."

"Among bearded ladies and self-proclaimed freaks? Harsh, Swan," Edward says.

"You know you won't be able to call me 'Swan' when we get to Forks, right?"

"Why not?"

"My... dad is Charlie Swan. Or Chief Swan, rather," Bella explains, tripping over the title for her father. "It'll get confusing. And I don't want any of those moments where you say 'Swan' and both of us answer and then everyone feels awkward."

"Ahh, see, you say 'awkward', I say 'entertaining'." Bella casts him a warning look.

"Fine, Swan. I'll call you something else. I'm sure I'll come up with something."

Bella's sure—and rather wary—that he'll come up with something, too.

There's an awkward moment where their eyes meet and Bella feels a weird shiver down her back, like someone has dripped ice water on her spine, tickling and tingling. Judging by the quick way Edward flings his eyes back to the road, blinking rapidly, she thinks he feels it, too. She stares at the road in front of her, the dashboard, her sneakers, but nothing holds her stare and she keeps flicking back to his face, narrowly missing him doing the same to her.

Actually working on the case is far and away—first they'll have to survive the rest of the drive to Forks.

* * *

_thank you to Quoda & Moony, the best 80's buddy cop/beta pair that never was & to daisy3853, for not pre-reading like a Venus fly trap, whatever that means._

_thank you for reading and those of you who reviewed & recced, thanks for taking a chance on a new story. we get to Forks next time and we'll see just what is going on there. _

_I don't write footnotes but all the legends, deities and stories mentioned are actual stories/beliefs. Oh and yes, this story _is_ named after that Buffy ep. __  
_


	3. How Do I Live

**Chapter Three.  
How Do I Live**  
with the fact that you've seen me naked?

There are many shitty things about being around an ex. There's the memory of the break-up—even if it was amicable (which it definitely wasn't, in Edward and Bella's case), it still sucks. If you ended it, you're heartless. If it was ended for you, you're heartbroken. And god forbid if it is due to infidelity, then there is loss of trust and decimation of self-worth and all sorts of messy things that expanding on will just be a total buzz kill.

But the biggest problem with Bella and Edward was not that they both had different opinions on who was the ender vs. the endee, or whether infidelity, or at least betrayal, had occurred. No, their biggest problem was arguably the single most shitty thing about having to spend a lot of time around an ex.

That person has seen you naked.

There's a certain dynamic you share with someone who's seen you naked. It's the dynamic of power. Power where they can turn around and say, "I can see you naked whenever I want—even if you don't let me anymore. All I have to do is remember it". It's that, out of the blue, the person could call you and say, "I am picturing you naked right now as I walk down the street" (or "as you sit next to me in this car"). It's odd and can be uncomfortable, can feel exploitative and awkward, but the one thing it absolutely is is irreversible.

It's all of the above and ten times more true if you still find said ex attractive.

So, as they are driving into Forks, Bella is thinking of this—how Edward could be picturing, nay remembering, her naked this very moment. Which affronts her in many ways, but of course, leads to her picturing—sorry, _remembering_—him naked.

Edward has that particular brand of undeniable good looks—an intelligent, etched face, as handsome in motion as it is still, height that renders him a masculinity his pretty face could have taken away, and that swaggering, magnetic disposition, providing intangible charisma.

Because of his sartorial proclivities (in unpretentious-nese: dress sense), Bella has only ever seen Edward in a suit, when working, or naked, when playing. He looks great in a suit. He looks greater out of one. He is long and lean, linear symmetry in flesh. Bella can admit there is a magnificence in naked Edward, as if God or whatever created him wanted to make sure that should his brains fail him—as many pretty people's have— that he have a fall-back career as an art model or perhaps, even a Greek statue (if he can stay very still).

She knows she shouldn't really think about Edward like that anymore, that his body is no longer—and maybe never was—hers to ponder. But she figures her thoughts are safe within the confines of her mind, not realizing that her face broadcasts whatever she's thinking, and that Edward is keenly watching. And so she continues, musing that her favorite part of the delectable buffet of his body may be, oddly enough, his thighs. His ass is great, too, so beautiful it's almost painful—unrelated to the fact that he is a pain in the ass. Bella knows firsthand (and from her second hand, too) that it is soft yet firm, like two scoops of ice-cream. Oh and his calves. He's got fantastic calves, like two slabs of filet mignon.

Bella should have eaten on the flight—her hunger and horniness seem to be combining strangely.

Since the majority of the duration of their time together had been spent in the field, there were no dates, no sexy lingerie, no natural progression of the relationship. Their dates were late nights of research and their dinners were reheated coffee; the extent of their commitment to each other was to give up what little time they had to sleep for sex they didn't have time for. It was not as casual as they both used to pretend or and now attempt to remember it as, but it was fun and freeing and it wasn't quite love... yet.

There's something to be said about having a dalliance with a co-worker—so let's just say it: it's convenient, especially when you're in the field with them. So while Bella wasn't easy, falling into bed with Edward was, especially with the sultry beach air and endlessly starry sky and the beauty of that little island off the coast of Brazil that first time. And Edward rarely ever played hard to get, so he had no intention of starting when he was clearly getting hard every time Bella would fix those big brown eyes on him or bite her lip. For awhile, things between them were nice and easy (while occasionally being rough and hard).

But with convenience came the flip side: mixing work and play meant eradicating the line between business and pleasure; so perhaps it was inevitable that when complicated decisions in work were made, it affected their personal relationship more than either could have ever imagined.

But right now, she's thinking of the hard—but not the difficult—part.

Unbeknownst to Bella, whose stare is fixed suspiciously high on his thigh, Edward's eyes are flicking frequently away from the road. And he is pleased to see the glint in her eyes, the pink sliver of her tongue as she traps it between her teeth. He's always been able to read her well, so he can tell she's thinking about how attracted she is to him. She may even be recalling some of their old romps. He should let it go. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that. He knows this with his better judgment.

But Edward tosses judgment to the side and says, "I'd ask if you see something you like, Swan, but... I already know the answer to that." Another one of Bella's buttons that he knows to push: arrogance. She hates it; he has it.

She clears her throat and impressively rearranges her expression into one of indifference in a split second, beating down her first instinct to blush and be embarrassed. He's not surprised—despite her massive fuck up, she's still got some of the best instincts of any agents he's ever known.

So does he but he's ignoring all of them by prodding Bella's ire. She's like a sleeping dragon—too fun and fiery for Edward to leave alone. And he'd rather have her hating him and hurling insults than being indifferent. Her anger reminds him of her passion, and despite all that happened, her spark, her spunk is something he likes very much. He isn't going to trust her with his heart anytime soon, but it doesn't mean they can't have fun. It's not the type of fun they used to have, but it amuses Edward nonetheless.

"Edward…yes, there was a time I found you attractive," she says. She's lying through her teeth, unless the time she means is always. "But you've heard of temporary insanity, right?"

It's just the type of retort Edward was hoping for, and his ego is like a magnet between his foot and his mouth. "Oh, I'm calling bullshit, Swan. You want me, I know you do. You want to fuc—"

"Don't say it, Edward," Bella says, in a tone that draws a line even Edward wouldn't cross. "Don't use that word."

"Why not?"

"Because I hate it. I hate that word being used when referring to me. I hate it being used when referring to something I've done."

"What do you want me to call it? Banging? Making love?" Edward says and is pleased to see that Bella shudders in equal disgust for all those terms. "Man, I could do this all day. You want to make the beast with two backs? Get some In 'n Out, animal style? Bump uglies?"

"Edward…" Her tone is warning, which—haven't you realized this by now, Bella?—just eggs him on more.

"A little rumpy pumpy? Put my basilisk in your Chamber of Secrets? Plant my purple tulip in your lady garden? Feed your kitty some cream?"

"Ed—'feed your kitty some cream'? Ugh!" Now he's just having fun.

"Take the skin boat to tuna town? Put some sour cream in your taco? Hop on the good foot and do the bad thing?"

Reluctantly, she's sort of impressed that he knows so many ridiculous euphemisms for sex.

"Why don't we call it nothing? Since we're clearly not doing it, can we just not talk about it?" She's practically snarling at him. He likes it.

"Well, we wouldn't have to if you didn't want to do it again so badly."

"What?" Bella screeches. "Now I'm calling bullshit. I think the only reason you even brought it up is because you want me."

"I want you? You're delusional, Swan. After what happened with… with that dog? I guess it made sense, you and him. After all, you are a bi—" Edward begins but then falls silent abruptly. He can't do it. He could literally cuss from A to Z in front of Bella, say every dirty thing that comes to his mind (and there are a lot) but he can't actually swear in regard to her. Even earlier, he was going to suggest she wanted fool around. Oh alright, maybe he was going to suggest she wanted to fuck around, but still. The modifier softens it.

"Fine. That's that then. You don't want me, I don't want you. It's established. No need for us to have this conversation ever again," Bella compromises. She noticed the way Edward didn't finish his sentence, and it placates her, just a tiny amount.

"Fine. It was getting kind of redundant anyway," Edward replies, with all the maturity of a punished toddler. But after two minutes of silent, seething entente, Edward wishes they could go back to arguing again. He hates silences, particularly those with Bella. So he's pleased when she speaks—less so when he hears her words.

Her voice is stern and steely, cold and clinical. He's never heard this tone before. "Edward, I don't care what has or will happen—I will not tolerate you mentioning Jacob." Inside, she is burning from embarrassment, anger flaring from hearing Edward bring up the incident. She can't believe what a troll he's being. And yes, yes, that's not very politically correctly to say and "trolls are people, too". But even so, his audacity is rather monstrous in light of how shaky things are between the two of them.

Edward is frowning. In his rare moments of self-effacing self-reflection, he knows he runs his mouth off too much. He really hadn't meant to bring up that topic. Ever. It is simply something he'd rather know as little as possible about—the few snippets he does know are already quite painful for him. And now, inadvertently, he has not only seriously offended Bella, but found out _its_ name. Jacob. That's going to rattle in his brain, like an itch he can't scratch—and not the good kind.

"Alright, Swan," he replies.

"I asked you not to call me 'Swan'," she says icily, face still turned away from him as she talks to the window. Inwardly, Edward kicks himself. He can rattle off euphemisms for sex by the dozen, but attempt to string together a détente and he messes it up before he even starts. This has always been his problem—he's so bad with serious.

What was formerly a thick river of tension has frozen into an icy barrier between them. Even as Edward continues to drive, his eyes flick to Bella, and he notices that she is still staring out the window. Deciding that the hostility is too thick to wade through, he dives right into a new conversation, hoping deflection will glaze over their differences, if only temporarily.

"So it's kind of strange to you, too? That Aro was so focused on containment?" Edward asks. He's relieved when Bella nods. She turns, still not looking at him, but facing straight ahead instead of away from him. It's something. "I can only think this is way bigger than just whatever's going on here. There's some hidden agenda and maybe not even Aro knows the full story, which is why he's so insistent this be clandestine."

"When have you known Aro not to know the whole story?" Bella asks. Edward nods in agreement. There's nothing like mutual hatred of a boss to reunite warring employees.

It is thoroughly odd what Aro is asking them to do—essentially sit on a case and watch it as opposed to actively trying to solve it, sacrificing expedience. He had stressed to them that even if it delayed their investigation, it was more important that they made sure to snuff out rumors, keep whatever occurrences may take place under the radar. He had ordered that they spend the first few days, if not weeks (god, Bella hopes it won't be weeks), merely watching and observing, doing background research.

"He could have been really distracted," Bella posits. "Marcus told me that there's a big missing person's case. Daughter of a god—probably whoever he was talking to on the phone, which would explain why he was being torn a new one."

Edward nods and is about to speak when something else grabs his attention. "Are you ready for this?"

"For what?"

Edward jerks his chin at a sign they are driving by. _Welcome to Forks, population: 3211_. "Home strange home."

As the GPS directs them to the Forks Inn, where they'll be staying, there is a noticeable change in the air despite no change in the air conditioning. Bella notices it, instinct and intuition twining to prickle at the back of her neck. She glances at Edward, and from the furrow between his heavy-set brows, she knows he feels it too.

They've been at this long enough to know the feel of Magic, how it perfumes the air. Magic isn't a smell, but it acts like it, dousing the atmosphere. It sits subtly yet surely in the back of the mind, conspicuous at first before it diffuses, re-calibrating everything to become undetectable until it startles you once it has gone.

Something is in the air, alright.

As if reading her mind, Edward states this, continuing, "This is going to make our instruments go crazy." He is referring to various devices they have brought with them, used to detect and identify various aspects of supernatural phenomenon.

"We can set them up in our rooms, but Marcus told me they may not really help. A vampire coven used to inhabit the area," Bella says, referring to the rooms they'll be staying in at Forks Inn.

Edward nods. "I know. According to my research, they left about ten years ago, though. I couldn't get details of when they arrived, but depending on how long they stayed here and how much they hunted, the trace they left behind may have dissipated. We'll see."

The GPS instructs Edward to turn left, so he does and then they are on the main street of Forks. Bella spies Forks Inn in the distance, but before that she sees the police station blur by them. She cranes her neck to let her gaze linger, knowing that her father is in there. With a combination of trepidation and false bravado, she turns to point out the landmark to Edward.

But the words never leave her mouth because Edward slams on the brakes with a loud swear from his mouth and a louder screech from the tires of the Volvo.

Now Edward and Bella have seen a lot of strange things in their line of work. They've seen ogres who wanted careers in show business (one who got one, not naming any names), banshees who were too happy to cry and a siren who wanted to become a pirate. To say the least, they're pretty adept in dealing with oddities.

But nothing in the world is as astonishing, as entertaining or as annoying as just good old human stupidity. People doing dumb things. Like so:

A man is scrambling across the road. He is mammoth in size—yes, mammoth is an appropriate term as he seems to have all the grace and momentum of one as he runs, darting looks over his shoulder.

Bella and Edward follow his gaze to see a stunning blonde in hot pursuit of him; she's waving her arms and wailing loudly.

"Emmett! Stop running! I love you, Emmett!" Her shriek is grating and utterly off-putting; not the kind of convincing one would need to stop running.

Bella and Edward tear their gaze away from the unbelievable scene unfolding in front of them to glance at each other. They hadn't quite believed it when it was written in plain words in the case file, but now, between the strange aura of the town and the ridiculous pair in front of them, it's undeniable.

Something is rotten in the town of Forks.

"Get away from me, Rose! Yesterday you said I was more monkey than man!" Emmett has decided that he will run no more and stops about ten feet away from Edward and Bella's car, giving them a front row seat as he tries to reason with the woman rapidly, enthusiastically approaching him.

"But you're _my_ monkey man!"

Reason may not be the way to go on this one.

A knock on the window startles Bella and Edward out of their flabbergasted stupor. Bella rolls down the window and is stunned into rare silence to see a face so familiar to hers staring back at her.

If he is equally shocked to lay eyes on his daughter for the first time in almost a decade, Charles Swan doesn't show it.

"Bella," he says. Despite his placid expression, it is screamingly obvious that Charles Swan is not a social being, making this reunion even more awkward. "Welcome to Forks." He raises his hand into her window, perhaps to offer his daughter a handshake, but seems to change his mind halfway through and begins dropping it back to his side.

Realizing that this is a moment in which he can redeem himself from his words in earlier in the car ride, Edward leans across Bella and offers his own hand. "Chief Swan, I'm Edward Masen."

"Uh yeah, Edward. I was informed that you'd be Bella's partner on this," he says, somehow infusing a fatherly disapproval into the word 'partner'. Still, he takes Edward's hand and shakes it heartily, glad for something to mask Bella's strange silence.

"Rose, get off me. Chief! Help me out here!" Emmett's plea for help directs their attention back to the debacle taking place.

Charlie Swan is visibly chagrined as he says, "I see you've met my deputy."

"That girl chasing after him, is she one of the episodes you listed in the case file?" Edward asks.

The Chief opens his mouth to answer, but their conversation is interrupted as the woman—'Rose' as Monkey Man called her—catches up and latches on to her prey. "Just hold still and let me love you!"

In a voice that clearly indicates that he doesn't suffer fools—and therefore, by being in this town is suffering greatly—Chief Swan replies, "No. This is a new one."

All three of them swing their gaze over to where Emmett is vehemently trying to struggle out of Rose's industrial-strength grip.

"Can't he just threaten to lock her up? I mean, that's got to count as assaulting an officer," Edward says, cringing as Emmett frees his arm from Rose's grip only to have her fling her embrace around his torso. It is pathetic and weird, which makes it infinitely comical.

"You misunderstood me," Charlie says. Edward and Bella turn their attention back to him. "Emmett's not my deputy. Rose is."

* * *

_Moonlightdreamer333 is beta fantastico and spoils me silly. Quothme wasn't here for this one, but she's always amazing. And Daisy3853 is the Penny to my Billy-buddy. _

_I know it was a short chapter after a long wait, but we're in Forks now & there (hopefully) won't be as long of a delay till the next chapter. I've been writing FGB stuff. I also got cool things: a VIP cabin at ADF & banner by the talented famouslyso. Everything's on my profile. _

_Thank for you reading and if you do, reviewing. It's really appreciated. _


	4. The Way We Were

Chapter Four.  
**The Way We Were**  
doesn't really matter since the way we are sucks.

As they both exit the car and follow her father into the station, Bella makes the first request she has of Edward in… well, ever. The way she says his name alone alerts him that what she's going to say is not a joke. "Could you... be nice? Behave for once?"

He mimes a halo round his head to which Bella rolls her eyes. "I'm serious, Edward. This... this is important." Moved to solemnity, Edward wordlessly nods.

Because when someone runs their mouth off as much as Edward, a lack of a retort really is the ultimate demonstration of sincerity.

"I can't even believe this is real… I mean, I know it was on the report but reading it and seeing it are two completely different things," Edward observes, once he, Bella and the Chief have sat down inside the station. He receives no answer, and looks up and sees that, next to him, Bella is once again uncharacteristically unforthcoming. She's also anxious as hell, he can tell, from the way her eyes are darting everywhere. Hoping to deflect the awkwardness, if not for Bella's sake, then for his sanity's, Edward addresses his question directly to Charlie. "So this really is what we're dealing with?"

"Looks like it," comes the terse reply.

Edward turns his head to side, and his attention to Bella. "I've never seen anything like this. In fact, I can't even remember reading any cases like this before."

"Yeah, me neither," she replies. Her voice has no gusto behind it, it's like a wet match that just won't light. _Where is all that sass and fire from the car?_ Edward wonders as he looks from one laconic Swan to the other. They're both withdrawn, unknowingly hunched mirror images of each other, heads slightly lowered, eyes casting around for anything to latch onto but one another.

Edward hates tension. He hates long silences. And he's not a huge fan of seriousness. So this tension-l-laden, seriously lengthy silence that has fallen on the three of them is unbearably annoying to him. He wants to crack a joke and by extension, the tension, but he can't.

Ruminating over just how to coax a modicum of ease into the room, Edward turns his attention to the Swan he's less familiar with. Ever heard that phrase "the eyes are the window to the soul"? Sure, you have—Edward has, too—but in Charles Swan's case, the mustache is the window to his soul. In the few minutes he's spent in his presence, Edward has already discerned that should he ever need to glean emotion from Charlie, his facial hair will tell him more than his eyes—or even his mouth, for that matter—ever will. Right now, under his heavy breaths saturated with nerves and awkwardness, the bristles are swaying slightly. A few moments later, when the Chief stomps to the window, Edward can see the ends droop even though he can't see the frown that makes them do so.

"Deputy Hale!" Charlie has that type of voice—the one that you think would carry more power in the quiet, measured tones he uses everyday. Until you hear him raise it, and then you understand that his gun is not nearly his most powerful weapon. "You will unhand Mr. McCarty and get in here in the next minute, or you will look for a new job!" He mutters a few words under his breath that sound like, "I _had_ to be Chief in the real world version of the Hellmouth, didn't I?" (It appears that the Chief is a Whedon fan.)

He's rolling his eyes and Edward cannot ignore how similar Charlie and Bella are. His disposition is the opposite of his open-book of a daughter, but their looks—from the strong chin and big eyes to the shades of brown and pale that color their features—are nearly identical. He is a stoic, male version of the face Edward knows so well.

Edward's mind works in ludicrous ways sometimes. For example, he realizes that in addition to their other features, Charlie and Bella even have the same mouth: small and quite feminine, though Charlie's is hidden by his mustache. Then Edward thinks of how he's kissed that mouth quite a bit—Bella's, not Charlie's. Then Edward wants to gag a little at the fact that he even had to make that clarification.

Edward manages to drag his mind from his depraved thoughts, only to face the two silent Swans (yes, that does evoke the 12 Days of Christmas for him, too). He takes it upon himself to break the silence. His tongue strains with all the things he could say, even as his mind reminds him of a promise he made—and actually wants to keep—a few minutes ago.

"So, Chief, what are the chances I can get a cup of that coffee Washington is so famous for?" he asks. In trying to infuse a friendly atmosphere, he affects an artificial upbeat tone, making him sound like a cartoon version of himself. No wonder his personality defaults to 'sarcastic asshole'—the other option is 'social doofus.'

But Charlie just looks relieved to have something to do that doesn't involve yelling at the bizarre behavior of his subordinate or lolling in the awkwardness of the worst family reunion ever. "Sure, Edward. Uh, Bella, would you like some coffee? I mean, do you even like coffee?" His words are common enough, probably spoken a million times a day by people around the world. It's his tone—stilted and overly cautious—and his body language that heighten the discomfort in the atmosphere.

Bella's no better. "I'll have some," she says in this tiny kitten voice, nothing like the insults and retorts she roars at Edward. "Black, please, I'm lactose intolerant."

"Oh yeah? Me too," Charlie says, seeming to finally understand how casual conversation works. "What are the chances…"

And it's back. That tension-filled, serious silence, except now also twined with so much discomfort it's nearly palpable. Bella and Charlie both visibly balk at the realization that it's not just that he and Bella have this in common—it's that he probably _caused_ it in Bella.

"I'll have mine black, too," Edward says, seeing the way her face closes down like a shutter. He's got to do something. "I'm not lactose intolerant… I just don't like milk. It's very uh, milky. So white. Too white. And sometimes cloudy. It just doesn't sit right with me. Of course, that could be because I once accidentally drank sour milk, and it put me off the stuff forever. Plus it gives you awful breath. Not to mention, it makes my stomach feel funny."

It would have been bad enough for Edward to stop there. But, no, he continues.

"I mean, I won't go into details, but it gets a little… gurgly… and to me, stomachs just shouldn't be gurgly. They should be, uh, smooth. Not like flat because, I mean, well, they're nice when they're flat. I don't know though, some people don't mind a bit of a gut. I don't really have preference for smooth stomachs. In fact, I sometimes even like a little, er, tummy as long as it's… y'know, not gurgling. So yeah, no milk in my coffee either. Please."

Bella stares at him incredulously. If he could, Edward would stare at himself incredulously. Although he has succeeded in his intention—which was to draw attention away from the inadvertent mention of Bella and Charlie's kinship—he hadn't meant to do so by appearing to be an idiot, but desperate times call for dumbass measures, and at least it worked.

"Uhhh, okay," Charlie says, giving Edward the kind of look that speaks volumes (Volumes like, _Why are you so odd? How did you_ ever_ manage to become an agent? Did you really just tell me you like 'a little tummy'?) _

Suddenly, Rose bursts in through the door of the station.

"I'm going to… uh, take the day off, Chief," she says, out of breath and erratic. "I'm not feeling so well." She's smiling so wide Bella can see her pearly white molars. It wipes off her face when she hears a car engine start. "No! Emmett! Don't leave me!" And then she is out the door.

"God damn it, Rose!" Charlie quickly hands the mugs of coffee to Edward and heads out after her. Edward hands Bella a cup, and they both take sips as their eyes meet over the rims.

And then there is a Moment. The type that warrants a capital letter, one where green meets brown, and magic—not the kind they're experts in, but the kind they know nothing about—fills the space between them, the gaps in their rapport, and the holes in their history.

It's the type of moment—sorry, Moment—so laden with inexplicable meaning that it triggers Bella's memory on one particular detail about Edward. She can't stop thinking of how his lashes are long and thick, rendering a softness to his etched bone structure. In fact, they're so long they almost sweep the top of his previously mentioned cheekbones when he blinks. Within a nanosecond, she's recalling the time they had been in bed, and she'd told him he had butterfly-kissing lashes.

After she'd explain to him what they were (he was a guy, how the hell was he supposed to know?), he'd rolled onto her, pinning her arms and fluttering his lashes all over her face while she shrieked in mock annoyance and undeniable enjoyment. She can recall the euphoria in the air and the ease of being with him, the utter freeness of his weight pinning her down—she can recall it so vividly that she almost feels his lashes on the apple of her cheek, tickling her and tingling all over right now when he blinks, but he blinks, and the moment is over.

On the other side of the gaze, Edward has no idea what just happened. He knows something did, he could see it in the way Bella's gaze glazed over while holding his, but he couldn't read anything in them, couldn't see the thoughts she normally gives away so easily.

When the Chief comes back in, Edward decides that there's been enough dilly-dallying. They're not here for the delightful awkwardness or to rubberneck at strange occurrences—he and Bella have a job to do.

"So Chief, give us a rundown of anything and everything that's happened since the events listed in the file," Edward prompts. He grabs the case file and opens it, holding it between him and Bella.

It's like someone has turned on a switch. Whereas he was slouching and shuffling before, Charlie is upright and commanding, even in an action as simple as pulling another file out of the drawer of his desk. When he speaks, it's with authority and intelligence, and his demeanor alone easily earns Edward's respect—from one law enforcement professional to another.

"Well, you saw my deputy, Rosalie Hale. Until yesterday, Rose was one of the best officers I've ever seen come through here; sharp as a tack, uncompromising, great bullshit detector," he says, sighing. "Now, she's like a rabid teenybopper for Emmett McCarty. Whom, I might add, she couldn't really stand 'til yesterday."

"Is she the only who is acting this… er, crazy?" Edward asks. He considers nudging Bella with his elbow, reminding her to chime in anytime, but when his eyes slide over to her, he can see she's listening carefully—she has that look on her face, where her mind is pulling itself in a million different directions, investigating all ideas and possibilities.

"If only. She's not even the craziest one," Charlie says, with a light snort. "In fact, I just got the okay from your boss, Aro, to get her in on the case. I was going to fill her in, as an extra set of eyes and then… well, you saw. People have only been acting like... _this_ for the last week or so. Initially—about three or four weeks ago, folks started pairing up. I mean, it was nothing particularly out of the ordinary, just a _lot_ of people… getting together, dating, whatever you want to call it."

"Any changes in the town around then? Newly discovered natural phenomena—or new residents?"

"Well, as for the natural phenomena—only the thing I talked about in the report," Charlie answers. Edward nods as he flips to the page. "There have been new residents—a slew of them, actually, and they all arrived at around the same time—just about a month ago."

"Alright, we'll need a list of these people," Bella says. Both men are surprised to hear her speak, but out of respect to her as an equal officer, make no overt mention of her emergence from her previous zombie-like state.

Charlie grabs a pad and scribbles something for a few minutes. Ripping the sheet off, he hands it to Bella. "Here's a list of them; since you have access to the archives here and the online database, you can look up their records and addresses."

Bella looks at the list of names. "There's only four names here. I thought you said there was a slew."

"In a town of three thousand people, four new residents in a month _is_ a slew." Edward nods before Charlie continues, "Like I was saying, the first ten or so people it happened with, I just chalked it up to coincidence or maybe delayed spring fever, but after that I couldn't ignore it. The folks here started talking about it, talking about how extraordinary and magical and romantic our town was because of all that was going on. That's when I knew something was up. Forks is special, but not in the way its residents think it is. It's not 'we're so lovely' special. It's 'there's a whole lot of strange here' special. Anyway, around last week, people started acting out—the way Rose is, and that's when I contacted your department. Anytime things have been out of the ordinary here, it's been because of something… not human. Last time, it was the vampires. In fact, you should know that—"

He's interrupted before he can tell them what they should know by the sound of loud sirens.

"What the hell?"

All three rush out the station just in time to see Rosalie doing her best _Speed Racer_ impression, gunning down Forks' empty main street with the police siren blaring.

"God damn it!"

All three watch for few seconds as the car jets down to the far end of the street (also the other side of town), and swings wildly into a parking spot. Rose sprints into the Thriftway few seconds later.

Charlie lets out a rather exaggerated sigh. "Well, now she's _all_ the way across town. How am I ever going to catch her?" His mustache twitches and Edward realizes that the Chief has just made a joke. A funny one, too. He laughs belatedly and Charlie joins in with a few chuckles. It's almost as if they've decided to not expect Bella to react, so they both miss the small smile on her face.

"I thought she'd stay put. I threatened her job—that's usually the line for Rose," Charlie says, rueful in the next moment. "Now, I'm going to have to write her up. If she continues to act like this, I'll probably have to suspend her badge, and put her on probation."

At the mention of the "p" word, Bella's face drains of color. Without even realizing his protective instinct kicking into gear, Edward decides that it's time for Bella and him to head over to the Forks Inn and settle in. Meaning no offense, but there's been enough of Charlie and his deluded deputy for now. Better they end on a slightly upbeat note than allow the discomfort to seep back in.

Instead of heading straight to the motel, Edward and Bella agree (stranger things have happened, though not many) to swing by the local diner for some food before collecting a water sample, and sending it off to the lab at headquarters for testing.

Edward feels rather proud of himself for being such a good ally to Bella—not only did he save her a few times from some awful, awkward moments, but he did so at the expense of Charlie's notion of his intelligence. He's not particularly self-sacrificial or overtly chivalrous, so he's expecting some form of thanks from Bella during their extremely short drive.

He gets nothing.

"You have anything to say to me?" Edward asks.

"Oh, I have plenty to say to you."

"You have nothing… positive to say to me?"

Bella snorts. "After you spent the car ride irritating me, and then launching into a diatribe of sex euphemisms?"

Oh right. Forgot about that. Edward sighs. He wasn't necessarily expecting a parade in his honor, just some sort of acknowledgment that he is, in fact, on her side. (Unless they're alone, in which case, it's every man for himself.)

"Well, here's something positive," Bella begins. He brightens for a moment. "I'm positive you're an idiot after that spiel about coffee in Charlie's office." And any lingering wish Edward had for peace is shattered—mostly because he subjected himself to humiliation via idiocy for her.

By then, they have reached the diner (Forks is _really_ small), and the thin veil of formality and cordiality between them has completely lifted. They silently slide into opposite sides of a booth, glaring at each other, but not saying a word.

The waitress, who stops by their table at that point, fresh pot of coffee in hand, has no idea of the war zone she's stepped into. "Coffee?"

Bella declines but Edward says, "Yes, please. Black."

"Like his heart," she mutters.

The waitress frowns at the seemingly unearned insult as she pours, but all she asks is, "Going to have a late breakfast? What would you like? Eggs?"

"Yes, two eggs," Edward says, flashing a polite smile at her. "Sunny side up. Like my personality."

Bella rolls her eyes. "I'll have eggs, as well. Two, over easy." Her head jerks away from the waitress toward Edward, and she cuts him off. "Don't say it, Edward."

He doesn't really need to, Bella. You've done it for him.

But any further nastiness is cut off by the sight outside their window. A young, cocoa-skinned man has pulled up right onto the lawn in front of the diner. He scurries out of his dark grey van and climbs on top, nearly falling and slamming his jaw on the side view mirror. He stands on the roof of the van and begins to shout.

"Lauren! Lauren!" There is the sound of clattering dishes. Edward turns towards the noise and sees their waitress rush to the front window.

"Tyler? What are you doing?" she screeches.

"What I should have done after that night of sensual lovemaking!" he yells back. Bella looks at Lauren. First she goes white, eyes darting around to see who heard that revelation. Then she goes red with the realization that _everybody_ heard it. But Tyler's not done. Not by a long shot. "I should have told you after our passion-filled rendezvous that you… are amazing. I can't stop thinking about you. You complete me."

"That's from Jerry Maguire!" someone in the back yells. "At least get your own material."

But Tyler isn't deterred by his lack of originality. "And I'm going to show you how committed I am to you. To us!" He begins to unbutton his shirt.

"Tyler, no! Please don't take off your clothes!" Lauren yells back. Several people agree with her request, but Tyler merely continues to unbutton his orange and pink Hawaiian-print shirt, and pulls the left side over his shoulder to reveal a tattoo of a… gremlin?

At least that's what it looks like to Edward until Tyler clarifies, "I got your face tattooed. Over my heart. Because that's where you live, Lauren—in my heart. Forever. That's why it says 'Lauren 4-Eva' below." He helpfully points out the writing under the picture of Lauren.

"Oh. I thought that was a beard," Edward says. His eyes are unable to leave the wreck of a scene in front of him as he drolly intones to Bella, "Are you as turned on as I am right now?"

"How turned on is that?"

"Less than not at all."

"Oh yes, definitely."

"Lauren? You better get that boy out of here," a soft, yet nonetheless stern voice cuts through all the din and chatter. Lauren nods and scampers, muttering, "Yes, Esme," as she passes by a gently aged, rather stunning woman, with toasted walnut-colored hair and warm eyes.

Bella turns back to Edward. "What's our method of action here? Grab him and try to get some information out of him, or head to our rooms and run some prelim tests?"

Their attention is snatched away as Tyler, in an attempt to rush to Lauren, falls down off the top of his van, but quickly jumps up, embarrassed and asserting, "I'm alright, I'm cool. I'm cool."

Almost in unison, Bella and Edward both say, "Prelim tests."

So they leave, and a few minutes later, check into the luxuriously lavish, six room property that is the Forks Inn. Conveniently, all they have are four single rooms and two bedrooms with a connecting door between them.

Guess which ones Edward and Bella get?

Because life is predictable, and maybe this story is too, Edward and Bella are given the two connecting rooms. They separate to clean up and unpack, and within a few minutes they are back to business, finishing up the requisite paperwork and mandatory bureau formalities. Bella has changed into new clothes—just jeans and a t-shirt—and rolls her eyes to see that Edward has changed into a fresh suit.

Currently, they stand on either side of the open door that connects their rooms. When Edward suggested they finish their initial round of paperwork in his room, Bella shot the suggestion down. Of course, when Bella suggested they do it in her room, Edward retaliated in kind (with a double entendre, of course). So now they both stand, laptops in one hand, finger typing with the other, refusing to compromise. It's funny how often stubbornness and stupidity overlap.

"You think it could be a disease or something?" Edward asks, trying to balance on one leg as he rests his computer on his knee while thumbing through the case file.

Bella looks at him, eyebrow arched, and smirks at his juggling act. "Are you serious?"

"No, I'm not serious. I was just setting up for a 'the town is lovesick' joke."

"Clever." She says it sarcastically, but secretly, she thinks it kind of is. She quickly grabs the end of his laptop as it slides down the side of his leg and holds it for him until he finds the page he was looking for.

"For your entertainment, partner." He smiles, full lips stretched thin and enticing.

Bella frowns. "I hate the way you say that."

"What, 'partner'? What's wrong with the way I say 'partner', partner?"

"Your tone implies the word 'sexual' should be in front of it."

"Once upon a time, that wouldn't have been completely wrong."

"Don't say 'once upon a time'. We were not a fairy tale."

"What, you think this is my idea of a happily ever after? It was just a turn of phrase, partner."

"You said that different."

"Well, you told me you didn't want me to call you 'Swan'. So I changed it. Now you tell me you don't like my tone. So I changed it. Contrary to what you believe, I don't attempt to annoy you." She fixes a look on him. "Alright, I don't _always_ attempt to annoy you."

"Yet you always manage to."

"Oh, the zingers, partner! I feel like I'm in a shooting range."

"Now it's more like partner... in crime."

"Well you are my partner in _solving_ crime."

"I don't think what we're investigating could be considered a crime."

"Anything that makes anyone act the way Rosalie and Tyler did, should be," Edward reasons. Bella, for once, can't argue.

Slowly, as they go about their work, they find a middle ground, even though their conversation is constricted and rigid, not veering away from the case even once. She doesn't like it—this lack of deviation on the job. One of her favorite things about her work is the human aspect of it—even when she's studying creatures and chasing demons, there's always a personality to be dealt with, a human aspect to the monster. And of course, there's the human partner, whether Edward or someone else, who she gets to share it all with. She doesn't know if she'd like her job half as much without that.

But she doesn't know if she's ready to be buddies with Edward. Their jabs and insults may be the most she can handle right now—it still stings a little too much, what happened between them, and after what happened with Jake, she's not ready to let her guard down at all. Not to mention the fact that, even with all his words, Edward hasn't really said anything about what happened between them. He, like her, treats this hostility as if it were innate between them, rather than borne of recent events.

"So…" Bella says, not knowing how to segue into a conversation with Edward that doesn't reek of belligerence. She wants to say something that will let him know that, while she's not ready to be friends or anything, she understands that they are working together and should attempt to get along. And that she may be slightly sorry for outright calling him an idiot earlier. "You didn't give me shit when Charlie mentioned probation. You totally could have. You could have told him."

Yeah, Bella, that's not it. Especially not in that (unintentionally) provoking tone.

Maybe because he's tired, or maybe because he's trying, Edward doesn't take the bait. "Yeah, well, we're on this one together. There's no point in undermining you. Our jobs are joined now." Immediately, he can't help but think that the last time their jobs were joined, there was a whole lot of other stuff they joined too. "Here, plug this in so I can turn it on?" He hands her the Discerner, used to detect the presence of airborne magic.

"True, but I think I have more at stake here," Bella says, as she undoes the ties and pieces the machinery together. "Forget probation or getting fired—I mess this up, and Aro'll slit my throat."

"Probably with Occam's razor," Edward mutters.

"What?"

He sighs. "You over-complicate things. Everything. Simple things. You can never take things at face value." He hands her a background research article on top-secret, highly complicated behavior modification and personality alteration cases, and then he says, "I don't get why."

Bella puts the sheaf of papers and her laptop down. She could argue with him, but she wants to stay focused. She was trying to say something to him, before he distracted her by being infuriating. "I just meant... you could have totally embarrassed me and told Charlie his daughter had messed up."

"I have nothing to gain from belittling you in front of Charlie. You always assume the worst of me," Edward says. He, too, puts his stuff down and grabs the Sourceror 3000, another device, used to categorize the nature of detected magic.

"You haven't exactly been benevolent."

"Well, that's because you've been pretty hostile."

"You're the one that brought up Jacob in the car!"

"You're the one that... if you hadn't been with that _thing_, I wouldn't have had anything to bring up!"

"Oh you've got to be—" _Beeeeep_, "—ing kidding me!"

_Beeeep_. The machine signals again as if trying to alert Bella that it has completed its analysis, but aside from shooting it a withering glare, as if _it_ is the reason for her rage, she doesn't make a move to see the results, simply continuing, "There wouldn't have been anything to do if you hadn't left!"

"I left for work! How was I supposed to turn down the opportunity to track Medusa? You know how rare a sighting is? You know what it meant for my career that the department asked me?" He's not going to tell her that once he was on his tracking assignment, he was miserable, both from the nature of his job—not at all his forte—and from leaving her behind. He's not going to tell her that he actually called up Aro to request to have Bella reassigned to the case with him, only to find out that she was suspended because she'd been personally involved with one of the subjects of her investigation—Jacob, he clarifies as he inwardly shudders—a little more than month after Edward had left.

"It wasn't about turning down the opportunity. I wouldn't have expected that," Bella says evenly, but then her tone becomes emotional. "It was about giving me a little more than three hours' worth of notice that you were abandoning me, both professionally and personally!"

"You didn't seem to care too much—you certainly bounced back fast!"

"How would you know? You weren't there! You don't know anything about what happened after you left."

He's about to just lay all his cards on the table and reveal that he, in fact, does know—and more infuriatingly, that he had to find out from Alec of all people, but the machine beeps again, even more insistently than before. He takes it as a sign to retreat. He doesn't feel like fighting this battle, hates the nausea that rolls in his gut when he thinks about her and someone else, hates the lines of hurt that mar her pretty face right now, hates this red hue of resentment that colors their every interaction. Neither are malicious people, and he loathes how their presence now brings out the worst in each other. He can only find solace that this is in their personal interactions; professionally, they seem to be doing okay—even if he conveniently ignores that that is a rather preemptive diagnosis, considering they've only been on the case for two days.

So instead he walks over and prints out the results from the two devices and reads them. "It's not airborne," he says, holding up the results from one machine before flipping to the other. "But this confirms it—Forks is indeed in the throes of a town-wide love spell."

* * *

_As always, thanks for reading. So you probably guessed before the end of the chap, but now you know just what is going on in Forks. And the Tyler thing is as cracky as this story'll get, promise.  
I think. _

_Anyway, The Fictionators recced OM,WF! Thank you, ladies! __ If you've seen this rec or recced it yourself, tell/remind me? I have rewards.__  
I'm gonna continue to thank famouslyso for the **beautiful **banner she made me: _http:/ / bit. ly/ bFSE8O_._

_ RL has been nutso, so I apologize for taking so long to update but also for not getting to review replies-sometimes __it literally comes down to writing or replying__ and i figured you guys would prefer the former. RL also took quothme away but I'm SO lucky to have the lovely amerymarie step in. As always, moondreamer333 is the moony to my padfoot . I love daisy3853 for floating like a butterfly, and stinging like a bee._

_if you've not heard it yet, you guys are awesome. _


	5. Have I Told You Lately

**Chapter Five.  
Have I Told You Lately?**  
That you're driving me crazy.

There are two types of fighting. Alright, there are more than two but as far as this story is concerned, there are two. Type one is the really ugly kind, full of hurtful words and tear-inducing revelations. Fights that rip open old wounds, and then bring out the salt to rub it in further. (That salt comes in handy for the post-fight tequila binge that will inevitably occur.) Fights that are generally followed with stony, sullen silence. Type two is the much more fun type, composed of titillating jabs, thinly veiled innuendo, mock outrage and frequent gasps that remind the other of heavy breathing. Everything about this type of fight hints at how good the make-up sex will be. It's foreplay fighting.

Bella and Edward's fight prior to confirming the love spell? Definitely the former. (Sorry to disappoint after all that build up.) Perhaps because they're learning, or maybe because they're just as sick of fighting as you are of watching them do so, they stay away from each other for the rest of the day, communicating minimally, and never straying from the topic of work.

In fact, when they are setting up a loose itinerary for the next day, they do so utilizing an internet chat client from their separate rooms—but the connecting door between them stays open because neither wants to be the one to call uncle by closing it.

**Edward Masen:** So, tomorrow morning we'll debrief with the Chief, and then go into town to interview some of the residents?

**Isabella Swan: **Yeah. How're we going to explain why two EPA agents are so interested in the town and its people, though?

**Edward Masen:** Just make up a cover story.

**Isabella Swan:** Like what?

**Edward Masen: **I don't know…

**Edward Masen: **Say you're thinking of moving to Forks to be closer to your dad.

**Isabella Swan: **I'm not. I'd have to quit to do that. I would never.

**Edward Masen: **Hence the part where it is 'made up'.

**Edward Masen: **Don't be difficult. It's a good cover story.

**Isabella Swan: **It'll do, I guess. And you?

**Edward Masen: **And me, what?

**Isabella Swan: **Why are you asking questions in Forks?

**Edward Masen: **I'm just tagging along with you. Everybody needs a good partner.

**Isabella Swan: **Too bad I have to settle for you.

**Edward Masen:** Ouch.

**Edward Masen:** Touchy.

**Isabella Swan: **You spelled that wrong, I think. I'm pretty sure you meant 'touché'.

**Isabella Swan has signed off. **

Edward looks up from his computer and into Bella's room, where he can clearly see Bella smirking as she shuts her laptop. He's immediately pissed, mostly because he really likes having the last word. Of course, to do that now, he'd actually have to talk—out loud—to her and, through some unspoken agreement, both he and Bella understand that they need to stay away from one another for the day…at the very least.

And yet, the door between their rooms remains open. It's almost as if, despite both of them stewing away, they still don't want to be the one to shut the door on the other. Shutting the door would not only be rude, it would be a definitive answer to the question neither has wanted to ask—the final nail in the coffin—and would make further communication impossible. There would be no more hurt, but no chance of redemption, either.

Their stand-off continues through the night, the door remaining open as they sleep. This way, if by chance the other feels besieged by regret and remorse, they can rush over and beg the other for forgiveness without having the pesky and laborious task of turning a doorknob standing in their way. This doesn't happen, of course, but since the door is open, it doesn't mean it won't. The open door is a small window of hope that, even with all the walls between them, this small passage will lead them back to each other.

And here you thought the door was _just_ a door.

Anyway, the door is still open when Edward wakes up the next morning and trudges toward his shower, hearing that Bella is already in the midst of her own. It's still open when Bella leaves her bathroom, freshly showered and fully clothed since she's aware of the openness of the aforementioned door. Unfortunately, Edward is not a morning person and, therefore, has not realized this fact. So when Bella, thinking Edward is as door status-aware as she is, walks into his room, she is confronted with a wide-eyed Edward in just a towel, slung indecently low on his hips, as he runs a hand through his wet hair.

"I… I… didn't know…" Bella babbles incoherently. "I didn't… know you… had a… body…"

That's a lie. Clearly, she knows Edward has a body. Not only that, but even without the delicious view she was just granted, she knows just what _type_ of body he has, remembers it well, and recalls it more often than she will admit, even to herself.

She remembers the taut leanness of his back, and the firm muscles of his shoulders and forearms. She knows that the hair on that thin, vertical line that runs from his bellybutton down to his pelvis is the same dark brown color as his hair now, saturated with water from his shower. She is aware there is a vein, startlingly blue, visible under his skin all the way from the back of his left palm, up his flat forearm, biceps and shoulder that stops at his collarbone. She can easily picture the scar located in the indent under the right side of his pubic bone, covered up by the towel, from when he got too close to a real wolf that he mistook for a werewolf. She even knows that although his torso seems so long, his legs are even longer.

Not only does she know he has a body, not only does she know what it looks like, but she has the privilege of knowing what it _felt_ like. What his body felt like under her gaze and then her hands, under her own body or on top of it, moving relentlessly over hers or pressing her up against a wall, and even curled up behind her, evenly brushing against her back in rhythm with his sleeping breaths. It's rather unforgettable.

All these memories are racing through Bella's head as she backs clumsily out of the room, turning face-first into the doorjamb as she scrambles into her room and _finally_ closes that damn door.

Doesn't matter—it's already served its purpose.

Ten minutes later, Edward and Bella exit their rooms, the vibe between them easily summed up in two words: awkward and amused—awkward for Bella, amused for Edward. And Edward, quite pleased with her gaping, babbling reaction to him, isn't ready to let it go so easily.

Since their reunion, Edward has never seen any evidence to indicate that Bella still has feelings for him—other than annoyance, which is why he irritates her on purpose so often. He's not quite as aware of it as he should be, but he infinitely prefers Bella's hate to her silence. And now, with her barely contained response to his bared body, he realizes that she is still physically attracted to him. It's not much, but it's one step away from that indifference he so loathes and that's something, at least.

As he and Bella are driving to the police station, he catches her looking at him before her eyes can dart away, and he smirks. "Let's just get it out in the open—so you saw me in a towel. It's okay. It's nothing you haven't seen before," Edward says.

For a moment, Bella thinks he's actually being agreeable about the whole thing—until he says, "You can say it, y'know? 'Edward Masen is insanely attractive.' Say it, Bella. The truth will set you free."

She doesn't say anything, just rolls her eyes and focuses on the road as her fingers tighten on the steering wheel. But, due to his enjoyable ego boost, Edward is extra playful this morning and refuses to let it go.

"If you're that embarrassed, we can always even the score. Next time, _you_ come out in just your towel."

She huffs. He relishes it.

"I know you're thinking of how incomprehensibly attractive I am in your head. Just say it, Bella. Out loud." In his joviality, he forgets that he and Bella don't really touch anymore and he clasps his long fingers around the back of her neck, giving her a tiny shake. It's meant to be a friendly gesture, but the heat of his skin and the warmth of her neck inadvertently sets them both on fire.

The moment is suddenly heavy and hot and bothered, and they look at each other for one loaded, burning second before looking away. Edward draws his hand away from her and goes silent. He wasn't expecting to react like that—that the first intentional touch of his skin to hers after so long would be so potent as to recall a hundred more memories of so much more skin. But it did, and he is thrown thoroughly off-kilter with the knowledge that Bella's not the only one in this car who is nursing an old attraction. The gleeful, yet harmless advantage he felt just a minute ago has sizzled away into nothingness and left him feeling as disconcerted as she is embarrassed.

Luckily, the drive is short, and within a few almost unbearable seconds, they're out of the car, steeling themselves to see what Deputy Hale has in store for them today.

What they don't expect is to see Rosalie and Emmett in a passionate embrace that looks surprisingly normal—and not only mutual, but rather zealous—compared to the last time they saw the two together.

Bella and Edward exchange a look, the scene playing in front of them, taking precedence over the events of their morning, and she sighs, hoping that at some point, this case will stop growing stranger by the second. _Right?_

When Rosalie sees Edward and Bella, she pulls away and blushes, but gives no other indication of faltering. She walks tall and focused, and between the uniform and the sure, steady look on her face, she easily commands respect. Or at least, she would if the last time Edward and Bella saw her she hadn't been literally chasing after the man whose arms she just pulled away from while screaming at him like a woman possessed (which, if you think about it, is sort of what she was… or is. That part is still unclear).

"Agent Masen, Agent Swan. I'm Deputy Hale," she says, brisk and all business.

Before either Edward or Bella can reply, Emmett steps forward and says, "So, you're the Chief's daughter?"

Bella's eyes dart nervously to Edward, both out of habit and to seek help, but she realizes that she's going to be dealing with this a lot. Charlie is one of the most loved members of this small community. No one expects his daughter not to adore him as much as they do, so she might as well learn how to deal with this as soon as possible. "Yes, I am. Agent Bella Swan."

She and Emmett shake hands. "Emmett McCarty. I'm the phys. ed. teacher at the school here."

Edward completes the introductions, and then Emmett says, "Well, I know you've got a lot of important, covert—" he makes a goofy face on that word, which both Rosalie and Bella can't help but chuckle at, "—-things to discuss, so I, lowly civilian that I am, will get out of your way so you can continue with your top-secret, more-important-than-my-job, environmental government business."

He grins easily through his words, and there's a sweet, stilted moment that follows. Sweet for Rosalie and Emmett, who lean in to kiss each other goodbye as naturally as if they've been doing it all their lives, until Rosalie, blushing slightly, remembers she is at her place of work and worse, in front of colleagues. But stilted for Edward and Bella, as it only serves to remind them of the stark difference between a time when they were as comfortably in-sync as the couple before them, and now, where they can't even look each other in the eye. Especially not after the events of this morning.

"Emmett!" Rose calls, just as he steps out the door. He pauses and turns to her, and quietly, but in such a way that leaves no room to wonder whether she means every word, she says, "Thank you for stopping by, and thank you for the flowers." She smiles delicately as her eyes dart to the bouquet of purple and white pansies on her desk.

"Thanks for being someone I want to give flowers to," he says, so sweetly, eyes crinkling from the happiness in his grin, and again, it is completely opposite of his terrified annoyance of her the day before.

The minute Emmett is out the door, Rosalie's no-nonsense demeanor is back. "Chief Swan informed me you're in town to conduct a special investigation."

Edward and Bella nod as they exchange looks. Charlie had called them late last night to tell them that, while he didn't want to give Rosalie the details of the case—since she is one of the victims—he also didn't want to rule her out as a resource for them either. She's there to help them "blind"—without knowing any of the specifics—and can provide them with any background information they might need. Both Edward and Bella had insisted that with Rosalie's strange behavior, she'd probably do more harm than good, but Charlie had simply instructed them to show up at the station in the morning to meet her—and to "take notes".

Edward gets why now. _This_ Rosalie, with her even tones and smooth, instruction–manual-narrating voice, is clearly 180 degrees from the loopy, giddy girl she was yesterday. This Rosalie Hale seems every bit the star officer Charlie spoke of her as.

"Um, Deputy Hale…" Edward begins.

"I know," she says, letting out a frustrated huff. "I'd like to formally apologize for my behavior yesterday. I recognize that it not only put my own job in jeopardy, but threatened the reputation and effectiveness of the Forks Police Department. I can assure you it will never happen again."

"And you and Emmett, you've…um, worked it out?" Bella asks in a tone that implies she's not trying to pry, even though she so obviously is.

The delicate, nearly undetectable pink that colors Rose's cheeks only makes her look more stunning. "Well, um, I do make it a policy not to talk about my private life at work, but since I so spectacularly melded the two yesterday, I'll say that, yes, Emmett and I did figure out everything that needed to be figured—" at this, she can't fight the small, yet beamingly happy smile that dances on her lips "—and ask that we leave it at that."

Edward and Bella reluctantly acquiesce with a nod. They'll adhere to it for now, but sometime very soon, they're going to have to talk to her in order to understand what her sudden reversion back to her normal self means in terms of the spell.

"Charlie is taking care of a little dispute down at the library, but he should be back in less than an hour," Rosalie says. "In the meantime, feel free to go get some breakfast if you haven't eaten yet."

They haven't, but they don't know how to explain to Rosalie the strange tension that is between them right now—the tension that comes from pretending to be no more than two neutral co-workers doing field work for another standard case, when both their history and this case are anything but.

However, even if they knew how to explain it to her, they couldn't do so without over-sharing, so they follow her suggestion and head to the diner. Lauren takes their orders, noting how, this time, they barely look at each other, when last time, it was all flirtatious barbs and bickering. Last time, they looked well on their way to a foreplay fight. This time, they're depressingly stuck in the middle of the other kind. Even when she sets down their food in front of them, they're still not talking.

It's driving Edward insane—he hates silences, remember?— so he just says the first thing he thinks, realizing too late that is the absolute last thing he should.

"Alec told me about you and that… _Jacob_." He practically spits out the name, and then wants to kick himself. He hasn't been able to expel the thought of Jacob, or worse, Jacob _and_ Bella, since she mentioned him the other day. It's been like an itchy scab, irritating and revolting, in the back of his head. Clearly, his subconscious is rising to the surface when speaking without thinking causes him to bring that up.

Bella looks shocked. "What?"

Edward takes a deep breath. He's put his foot in his mouth with this one, and definitely bitten off more than he can chew. Ignore the disgusting visual: it just simply that since he was stupid enough to bring it up, he's going to have to talk about it. "About a month after I left, I realized I wasn't a good tracker. I wasn't having the type of success on that case that I had been with the ones we'd been on together. I'm not that type of agent, I guess."

Bella is surprised that Edward's ego allows him to admit that. He prides himself on being the best agent around, and even when they were together, though they were very equally matched, he never missed an opportunity to challenge her. It was that delicious competitive streak in him that had first attracted her, in fact. She was never one for taking the easy route.

But Edward is putting it all—or most of it, at least—on the line here so he continues. "One day, it just hit me. I thought… clearly, you and I worked best when we were together—uh, _working_ together, I mean. Um, we work best as a team. We were the best the department had. So I thought that you should join me on the case." He lets out a long, shaky breath, letting it fill the space where he should have mentioned that his motivation, while fueled by a need to be successful in his job, was primarily because he had missed her so much that he couldn't imagine continuing to work without her. And that he was going to threaten quitting if Aro didn't agree. But to say that would be defeat in this battle of egos and will they conduct. "When I called headquarters to talk to Aro, Alec picked up and said Aro wasn't in because he had gone out into the field."

Bella closes her eyes as she suppresses a groan. She knows this part of the story all too well—but she's about to be surprised because she's never heard it told by Edward. Or more accurately, by Alec.

"You can imagine my surprise—Aro never goes into the field. And then Alec told me that you were on probation." He takes a sharp breath though his nose before continuing. "He told me how you had been caught fraternizing with one of the members of the tribe you were there to investigate. You were AWOL, and Aro had gone to bring you back to headquarters."

Bella doesn't say anything and Edward doesn't look at her—he can read her too easily, he doesn't want her face to say the words her mouth isn't. Whether pity or disdain, he's not interested in seeing it.

It's neither pity nor disdain, but shock that shows on her pretty face. It's shock that paralyzes every part of her for a few moments, every part except her brain, which begins working furiously to put together the missing pieces, attempting to view certain moments in a new light, and analyze what Edward's said he'd known all this time means.

But, just as she is beginning to formulate a reply—she's still a few minutes from actually being able to verbalize them—their trance is interrupted by the chime of the bell above the door of the diner, and their attention is redirected to the chimer.

A tall, blond man steps in. He has the type of looks that belong on leads in movies—not comedies or blockbusters, but serious drama, where you're riveted by the handsome, tortured protagonist. He possesses a graceful agelessness that makes him undeniably attractive to almost anyone, and gives off the strangest aura—there's something cold and intimidating about him, yet the warmth of his smile is irrefutable. As everyone greets him, it becomes clear to Bella and Edward who this is: Carlisle Cullen, the town doctor.

As he takes a seat at the counter, it becomes clear why he is here. Esme, the owner of the establishment, places a cup of coffee in front of him. So quickly it's almost impossible to catch, he grips the saucer and, for a few fleeting moments, Esme's hand, before she withdraws. The gesture is discreet and intimate, and goes unnoticed by everyone in the room except for the two agents keenly observing from the corner.

After a few minutes of watching Esme go about her business with what can only be described as "goo-goo eyes", Dr. Cullen gets up, drink untouched, and moves to leave the diner. As he exits, doling out a good-natured smile to all the patrons and one smaller, yet infinitely more special one just for Esme, Edward and Bella turn to each other. Like the professionals they are, (yet due to their preoccupation with each other, often appear not to be) they ignore Edward's heavy revelations, and turn to the matter at hand, which is:

"So, he's definitely—"

"A vampire? Yeah. Definitely."

"Top of the list of suspects?" Bella asks.

"It doesn't seem like he's new in town—too many people seem to know him—so he doesn't fall within the brackets of suspects who moved here around the time the spell started, but as a vampire, he definitely has more knowledge of—and maybe access to—Magic, compared to human civilians. Definitely a suspect," Edward says.

"We should call Marcus. If this guy is in the database as part of the Vampire Registry Act, he'll know, and if he's not, Marcus will want him to be," Bella says.

"You think she knows?" Edward asks, nodding toward Esme, who is wearing a sublime smile directed somewhere far beyond the plate of food she's preparing.

Bella contemplates Esme's blissful countenance, clearly a result of the visit from the vampire. Then she looks around at the diner's other patrons, going about their day as if they hadn't just had a carnivore whose diet consists of blood—though judging by the color of his eyes, not theirs—in their midst, before she taps the shoulder of the man in the booth behind her.

"Excuse me?"

He turns, and a spark of recognition quickly lights up his face. "You're Chief Swan's girl, right? Here from the Environmental Protection Agency?"

"Yes, I am. Bella Swan," she says.

"Pleasure to meet you! Your dad is one of the best we've got here. I'm James Herring."

"Nice to meet you," she says. His smile, with slightly protruding canines, is a little too wide for her—and a little too wily for Edward, on the far side of the table and the outside of the conversation. But she's going to need to start putting her people skills to work. "I was just wondering about that gentleman that who just walked out—"

"Dr. Cullen? He's our town doctor, another great, wonderful soul," James replies. He's got the kind of enthusiasm that is sycophantically creepy with one word and blisteringly annoying with the next.

"And that's his… wife?" Bella guesses, nodding at Esme, remembering the two golden rings she's seen adorning the diner owner's hand.

James lets out an odd laugh that makes him seem even more like a hyena. "Dr. Cullen and Esme? Why ever would you think that?"

_Because we have eyes_, Bella thinks. Overtly, she just shrugs, not wanting to draw attention to her suspicions.

"No, Dr. Cullen just frequents the diner, as do we all. Food is great here, y'know? I see you're trying the pancakes today. I'd suggest the French toast for tomorrow. Anyway, Esme's married to Charles Platt—he's a businessman, so he's away a lot. She opened the diner about ten years ago to pass the time."

As usual, the friendly loquaciousness of small town people is as good as any information database. "Oh, alright. Thanks for clearing that up for me, James."

"No problem," he says, grinning. Bella's about to turn back to Edward, but James continues speaking. "So how long are you going to be in town for?"

"It's…indefinite," she replies.

"They don't need you to get back to the EPA?"

Bella forces a smile, ready for the conversation to end. "I'm sure they do, but I want to stick around Forks for a bit. I might be considering moving here."

"Well, that's great!" James says, far too excited. "I recently purchased my first piece of property—I am a damned proud owner of Forks' real estate. So you just let me know if you need _anything_, alright?"

Okay, now he's leering. Bella's done talking to him, and even if she weren't, Edward is about one more of James' glances at her breasts away from ending the exchange himself.

"Thank you." She intentionally turns abruptly back around before he can give her his phone number or initiate any other further conversation. "It doesn't look like anyone knows about Dr. Cullen," she says to Edward, picking up their previous thread of conversation. They talk in low voices, heads close together, aware that Bella's interaction with James has caught the eye of many of the patrons. "Where is his blood supply coming from? He looked damn healthy. Why didn't Charlie tell us about him?"

Edward wonders for a moment and then recalls. "I think he was going to—when he was recalling his history with the department, but we were interrupted by Rosalie."

Bella sighs. "Oh, God. There's something else we should do tomorrow. We need to interrogate her about Emmett, and she's not going to like it; she was very much all business earlier."

Edward grins slyly. "I may or may not have sent an email to your fa—to Charlie, asking that he do the dirty work for us and prep her."

Bella looks over at him in pleasant surprise. "Really?"

"Really."

"Nicely done, Masen." She grins at him and he beams back, their muddled past and problematic present forgotten for the moment, but the minute those smiles wane, it comes rushing back and they look away uncomfortably.

There's an odd sensation in Bella—two actually, and perhaps only odd because they're at war with each other. One part of her wants desperately to address Edward's comments prior to the doctor's entrance. She wants to lay their whole sordid history on the table along with his scrambled eggs and her pancakes—maybe right next to the salt and pepper—just to clear the air so that maybe they can finally get past the strange, strangled bouts of emotion that latch on to them, choking their rapport.

The other part of her has been hurt too much lately—first by Edward, then by Jacob—to trust that it can be so easy, and her recent spate of issues with the male gender have left her with a wariness for them that won't let her say what she so desperately wants. It's nowhere near as nasty as that pervert Freud would say it is, but it's not hard to see that some of Bella's leeriness with the opposite sex stems from the lack of a solid father figure.

But that father figure seems very solid when he walks up to Edward and Bella's booth, with chagrin in his step and a grimace on his face. "You two better come see this," he says, ominously.

They're pushing aside their unfinished breakfast and following Charlie out the door of the diner even as Bella asks, "Now what?"

She can scarcely believe it's still morning—or that they've only been in town for a few days. It feels like time has stretched into eons and reality has been upended. She finds herself wondering whether it was Forks she and Edward drove into or the Twilight Zone.

"Well, let's just say, you'll have more people to question once you're done with Rose and Tyler," Charlie says as they walk swiftly into the center of town. He looks like he's about say more, but is interrupted by a noise that sounds like a donkey braying during the act of mating with all the pleasantness of a metal fork scratching on Teflon.

Bella's earlier thought is correct: at some point, this case_ is_ going to stop getting stranger by the second.

This is not that point.

* * *

_As always, thanks for reading. Originally, I had this plan to write shorter (2kish) chapters and post more often, then this chap popped out in its 4K+ glory (or lackthereof.) I may try and do that shorter/more often thing for the next few chapters but we'll see how it goes. Either way, my goal is to be updating more often. Sound good?_

_As always, _Moonlightdreamer333_ and _AmeryMarie_ beta the crap out of this and are wonderful. _Daisy3853_ prereads to make me happy. Thank you to _war123/seaandsun _for starting a Twi'd thread, which I'll try and post teasers/answer questions on. Also I suck and forgot to personally thank _Lightstartdusting_ for her Fictionators guest rec & _Banananannanapancakes_ for reccing me in The Woods... You ladies kinda make my day._

_Some of you guys have said this story is your happy place. Your reviews are my happy place. _


	6. Maybe I'm Amazed

**Chapter Six.  
Maybe I'm Amazed**  
That we are managing to hold civil conversations.

There are bad open mic nights. There is bad karaoke. There's bad, drunken karaoke. And, worse than all of these combined, there is Ben Cheney, wireless mic in one hand, boom box balanced on his opposite shoulder, standing outside the main building of the Forks High School.

Somewhere, John Cusack is crying tears of blood.

Ben is ostensibly trying to woo a girl by the name of Angela. In fact, he's proposing. Why he's chosen to do so by blasting Queen's "We Will Rock You" and trying to sing his own amended lyrics over Freddie Mercury, is anyone's guess.

With the signature stomp-stomp, clap of the song, he sings "Will you, will you marry me? Will you, will you marry me?"

It would be cute. If it wasn't so dumb. If he wasn't so off-key. If… no, no. In no scenario would this be cute.

"What is happening?" Bella cries. Rosalie, who is waiting at the scene, has a withering look on her face as if her ear drums have imploded—or that she is wishing they had—in the time she's been exposed to Ben's singing (if you can call it that).

"Well, Cheney came down here and asked Angela to go the window of her classroom—she teaches at Forks High. She did, and then…_this_," Rosalie says, grimly gesturing to Ben. The situation is only made worse by a horrified looking Angela, leaning out her window with all her students trying to peek around to see what is happening, what this noise that rivals nails on a blackboard is.

"This goddamn town," Charlie mutters, wincing as Ben screeches through another verse.

_Angie, you're a girl, you're sweet girl,_

_Livin' in Forks…_

"It's way too early in the morning for this," Edward says. Bella looks at him, her eyebrow popping up and he confirms, "I'll be ready for it at around quarter past never."

"His singing is not even the worst part," Charlie says.

Lo and behold, the worst part comes stomping up the street.

"What the hell, Cheney? Who the hell do you think you are, proposing to _my_ fiancée?"

"Please tell me that's the worst part," Edward mutters. "I don't think I can handle more of this."

"That is Michael Newton. Angela's fiancé. They're getting married in two weeks," Rosalie informs them.

"Jesus, I think I may have to quit this job," Bella jokes, even though the look on her face shows that she's definitely not amused.

Charlie smiles. "Well, let me tell you, after nearly thirty years in law enforcement whether, uhh… normal—" He gestures to himself then Bella, "Or a little less normal, you realize you can withstand things you'd never even want to."

Bella sighs. "Yeah, I get it. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger."

"Exactly," Charlie says. "Just think what a good drinking story this is going to make. 'Remember the time…' " His moustache twitches. "Not that I condone you drinking or anything…"

And despite his quip alluding to the fatherly role he should play, it's vague enough not to be awkward, and Bella can't help but smile. Charlie is funny. She didn't expect that and it's a wonderful surprise.

The sweetness of that moment is shattered by Ben's reply to Mike.

"You can't fight fate, Mike. Ang and I… we're meant to be!"

"Oh, yeah? Maybe you should ask her," Mike replies hotly, gesturing to Angela who is looking like a spectator at a ping-pong match, head volleying between the two men. "Since she's already agreed to marry me."

Suddenly Charlie's back straightens and his head lifts. "I see the power cord. Rose, you go shut off that damn stereo," he says, striding fast. "I'm going to prevent the most pathetic fistfight never to happen."

"The only problem with what Charlie said is…" Edward says, moving to stand next to Bella, so he can lean down and talk in her ear over the cacophony. In this moment, he's so focused on the crazy going-ons in front of him, he can't be bothered to be uncomfortable about his revelations about when he left from less than half an hour ago. "Sometimes what doesn't kill you… only makes you want to kill yourself."

Bella smiles and unintentionally leans into him, not recognizing her own disappointment when he moves away. They watch as Charlie and Rose defuse the situation before it can escalate, hauling Ben down to the station on threats of disturbing the peace. By the time the whole mess is sorted out, it's late afternoon and Bella and Edward, with intentions to talk to Ben, Mike and Angela within the next few days, are figuring out their next move.

"So who do we have to interview?" Edward asks.

"Of the new residents?" She pulls up the list. "Well, two birds with one stone. Both Riley Checkhov and Tanya Amadeus work at the newly opened Forks Florist."

"Tanya Amadeus? That's..." Edward trails off, searching for an appropriate word.

"An interesting name?"

"Yeah."

"Well, my name is Bella Swan. I'm not really in a position to judge," she says, mildly.

Edward laughs, quick and full of mirth. "Yeah, neither am I, I guess. Edward? I'm clearly in the wrong century."

"Your mom was an Austen or Bronte fan?"

"Both, actually. But I'm named after my father—whom she swears she married because he reminded her of her favorite hero."

"Please tell me she meant Ferrars and not Rochester."

"Oh, you're not a fan of the original Byronic hero?"

"Ugh, no. So broody and whiny."

"Not to mention married."

"You've read _Jane Eyre_?" Bella's tone hints that she is impressed, and this pleases Edward more than he thought it would.

"And _Sense and Sensibility_. My mom made me. She said I should know about the men who shared my—and my father's—name." Something about this interaction, the ease and flow, reminds him of the way they used to be. It gives him a courage to joke about something he may not have a few days ago, and he prays that Bella will play along. "I'd like to think that's why I'm so charming."

Bella rolls her eyes, a direct contradiction to the smile she is trying hard—and failing even harder—to tamp down. "Oh, _that's_ why."

"Well, we men have to have some tricks up our sleeve." And ever the one to enjoy an inappropriate joke, he continues, "I mean, my tricks are located elsewhere, but still. The point stands."

Thankfully, Edward doesn't feel the need to voice the 'get it? The point is my penis.' portion of his joke. But he can't resist snickering at it, nothing but an overgrown boy in a man's body.

Bella's mouth twists and turns as she tries valiantly to be outraged by his raunchy sense of humor. It's too bad the glint in her eyes gives away how much she enjoys it. "Oh my God. I can't believe you just said that."

He can't believe he got away with it. So, of course, he pushes it. "What ever do you mean? I was talking about my brain. You, Agent Swan, are a pervert."

She can't hold it in anymore. She lets out a guffaw. "Whatever, Edward. Your double entendres are so obvious, they're practically single."

"Not the only thing that's single," he says, casting an overly lascivious smirk coupled with an obvious ogle, knowing that she'll react to it.

"Really? Really? That is your idea of a pick-up line?" There is such a spark in Edward's green eyes, she can't help but light up a bit. "Women actually fall for that?"

"Uh, it worked on you, didn't it? You fell for it." And him. Though Bella and Edward both think it, neither say it. Edward keeps dancing across the line he and Bella drew upon their initial reunion. He pushes it and them a little further, and then a little farther, hoping to revert back to how it was in the past, when they were so free with their words and teasing.

Well, free enough unless it came to expressing real emotion.

"Yes, but I know so much better now. I'm just thinking of all those ladies who have fallen for it since I did..." Her eyes slide to him and, seeing an immediate change in his demeanor, she trails off. Gone is the man from ten seconds ago, who had a dirty retort for everything she said—Edward has fallen oddly silent. And his green eyes, so often probing and prodding at her, are suspiciously staring in every direction but hers. "There _have_ been ladies since… right, Edward?"

"Right, Bella." He clears his throat.

"Right." She clears her throat.

"Right," he agrees again, and it's on this one that she is shockingly sure that Edward has not been with anyone since they were last together. Even when he thought she was with someone else. He's not been with anyone since over six months ago. Neither has she, and she knows how sexually frustrated she feels. No wonder he keeps making all those dirty jokes.

She remembers what it was like after the implosion of their relationship. When Edward left, it felt like he had taken a part of her—not her heart or soul, for even if they were that deep in, they hadn't acknowledged it to themselves, let alone each other. But what he had taken were the things she'd relied on more than platitudinous ideas that she could wax poetic over. His leaving had wrecked her self-esteem, her confidence, and her belief in herself as a woman, as a person worthy of affection and love.

But as she looks at Edward and sees the defeat in his face upon admitting that to her, she decides that just maybe, it's time to come clean. Perhaps a bit of honest conversation is what they need. So she tells him. In a big bungle of words, she tells him everything.

She tells him how she and Jake were never together, but that Jacob wanted to be, with reams and spiels of promises that he could love her and heal her. She overtly skips over saying why—that she couldn't even really contemplate being with Jake, when she was still so taken with, and thoroughly hurt by Edward—but in the spirit of revelation, it is implied. But, she does tell him how much it hurt when Jake and his affections—unrequited though they were—disappeared in the blink of an eye when he imprinted on someone else.

"I was so stupid and so weak, but it just felt like everyone I knew was leaving me over and over again," Bella says quietly. She can't bring herself to look up, so she misses the shadow of guilt and remorse that darkens Edward's face. "I just… I don't know. Maybe I had a mini-breakdown or something but I just disappeared. I didn't check in with Alec, I did stupid things like cliff-diving and motorbike riding. Of course, that's when Alec decided to actually act like my handler, and started digging around. When he found out about Jake's imprinting, he put two and two together, and got five."

Edward snorts angrily, if that's possible. "God, I hate that guy."

"Me, too," Bella says, darkly. "Long, pathetic story short, he reported to Aro that I'd broken the non-fraternization rule between agents and subjects of investigation. Aro hauled ass down to Oklahoma—I'd stayed in Quileute territory after my breakdown—and found me. He pulled me off the Quileute shape-shifters case, and put me on probation—for going AWOL, not fraternization as everyone thought. And for months, I had to attend private weekly sessions with Dr. Barnett."

Edward's eyes bug out. It's protocol for most agents to have monthly visits with Dr. Maggie Barnett, the agency's resident psychologist, as part of protocol. (You try dealing with Martin T. Boogeyman—though, he prefers going by his middle name, "The", for work—on a professional basis without needing some serious therapy.) But serialized appointments are saved for the real loonies. And as ornery as Bella is, she's very much not crazy.

"I know, I know," she says finally, reading his shock perfectly as she looks at him. "Don't worry, when I say you drive me crazy, I don't mean it literally. I'm never going to be like that again—I can't even believe the state I was in. I just let life walk all over me… I didn't bother to correct Alec, I never told Jake how much it hurt me when he just cut off all contact and left me, and… I guess I never really told you, either."

They hold each other's gaze for a moment and it says more than they ever can. After her bungle of words, the weight of everything that happened after Edward's decision to leave weighs down on them so much that they can barely hold a conversation.

"Did you—" _sleep with him?_ Edward attempts but cannot finish his sentence. Once again, their silence says more than their words.

"No, I never…" _even kissed him._

"I thought we—" _had something._

"We did, but then…" _you left._

"That doesn't matter—" _I didn't want to leave _you_._

"It mattered to me."

However, with two people as stubborn as them, things need to be said explicitly. Because while you think that was what their unspoken words should have been saying, it could just as easily be this:

"Did you—" _leave me any dessert after lunch?_

"No, I never…" _even thought you wanted some._

"I thought we—" _could have eaten it together._

"We did but then—" _you went to shower and I got hungry._

"That doesn't matter—", _I still wanted dessert._

"It mattered to me."

But even with all the confessions in the last two days, in Edward revealing that he wanted her with him, in Bella correcting Edward's misconception that she had gotten together with Jake less than a month after he left, and in Bella revealing how devastated she was, they still don't quite speak their minds.

Perhaps that's the nature of confessions. You say your piece—but not necessarily your peace—and leave it at that. Say too many words and they dilute the power of the ones you did speak.

And so, for once their silence isn't a sparring or an uncomfortable one, they're just internally weighing the heavy things they've confessed, and the implications of how it will change things between them.

But life goes on and work goes on, and it's a blessing in disguise as it gives them a focal point, and a reason to face each other. Otherwise, they might have run away from one another and drowned in their '_should have-would have-could have_'s, drunk on the impossible hypothesis of it all.

After picking up a late lunch and grabbing coffee to go, they head to Forks Florist to see if two of Forks' newest residents have anything to do with what is happening in the town. Riley is not present, but Tanya is.

Boy, is she ever, in that undeniable kind of way. Tanya Amadeus is beautiful in a way that warps psyches to succumb to hedonism. She is beautiful in the type of way that inspires unbidden sensual thoughts. Her appearance gives her an aura that draws every eye to her, and every man passing the wide storefront can't help but crane his neck, hungrily swallowing as many glimpses of her through the glass as he can.

She's also the type of woman that other women hate to stand next to—Bella is no exception. But what she hates more than standing next to Tanya is that Edward is, as well. There is no way she can conceive that he, too, is not noticing the erotic curve of her hips, the fullness where her t-shirt stretches across her chest, and the stunning flow of her blonde waves, colored like late-afternoon sunshine.

So busy is Bella, seething silently at her own insecurities, that she doesn't realize that while Edward clearly recognizes and admires Tanya's attractiveness, as any man is wont to do, he's slipped into work mode. Under the guise of Bella moving to Forks, he asks a few questions about how she likes the town and why she moved here. Bella cannot detect anything odd in her answers.

"So you're thinking of moving here to be closer to your father?" Tanya asks. Her tone is of genuine interest, and Bella's inner warrior eases a bit when Tanya's gaze doesn't linger for longer than the necessary time it takes to admire Edward's attractiveness.

"Uh, yes. I just think it would be nice to get to know him a little more," Bella says.

Tanya's smile falters in the same slight degree that her eyes slip away. "That's nice. Fathers… they're important."

Edward and Bella exchange a look that's more of personal gossip than professional breakthrough since Tanya's daddy issues are no more pertinent to their case than Bella's. "Anyway," she says, brightening once more. "You two will move here together, then?"

Edward and Bella exchange a look once more, but this time, it is of surprise and panic.

"Oh, no—"

"We're not—"

"—together, we just—"

"—work together at the E.P.A. We're on assignment checking on the acidity levels of the Hoh."

"And I decided it'd be a nice chance to see about moving to Forks."

"We're not—we're just colleagues." But even as the words slide easily off Edward's tongue, his eyes gather why Tanya would make her assumption. He's standing to the left of Bella, slightly behind her, his left shoulder and her right one lining up perfectly so he is speaking to her no matter whom his words are directed to. In turn, her shoulder is pulled back, and her head is tilted slightly in his direction. They might be spewing denials but their body language is speaking louder than either of them. Most telling of all, they're standing much closer together than 'just colleagues' ought to.

"Oh, pardon my assumption," Tanya says, her eyes darting to the lack of space between to them. Awkwardness hanging in the air, Edward and Bella simultaneously realize their work here is done, for now, and excuse themselves.

As they walk out, Tanya waves goodbye and Edward tosses a farewell smile in her direction. It's lopsided and casually over-the-shoulder, but still effortlessly charming, and the burn in Bella's belly is so potent that she can't ignore it. Even if there was no overt interest shown from either side, She's jealous of that smile intended for another girl and insecure of Tanya's genre of beauty that is so far and away from her own. And then there's that especially niggling feeling, closer to her heart than her gut: she misses Edward's smile—she misses when things between them were simple enough that a smile was just a smile.

"Well, she was…" Edward trails off, frowning slightly at how to appropriately describe one gorgeous girl to another gorgeous girl (especially since the latter is his ex-girlfriend.)

"Gorgeous?" Bella supplies, managing to keep the edge out of her tone, but not her sharp expression. Edward chuckles over her reading his mind.

"Well, yeah, but I was going to say…" His mind wars as to whether to be a jerk or not, whether to say something bland like 'nice', or something inciting like… "Voluptuous." Inciting jerk, it is. He likes the jealousy on Bella's face, how it lights a fire in her eyes. Tanya is so obviously a different type of beauty than she is—stacked and statuesque, exotic and, yes, erotic, whereas Bella's beauty is delicate and doll-like in the details: in her blush, which comes out when she's angry, or arguing, or aroused, or… well, anytime, really; in her small smiles, because she's not a big, wide grinner; and in the way that the curve of her head tucked perfectly into the angle of his chin when he used to hold her in his arms.

"Isn't 'voluptuous' the asshole way of saying 'fat'?" she asks hotly. Edward smiles to himself. Her jealousy means that some part of her is still sparked by him, and he can't help but stoke the embers. He's always been a bit of an instigator, anyway.

"What? Are you kidding me? That girl is _not_ fat. No one could call her fat. She's… well, like I said, voluptuous."

"So it's Asshole for 'she's got a big rack'?"

"It's _Gentleman_ for 'she's got a _great_ rack'," Edward counters.

"Sure, if you like that whole…tall, 36-24-36, blonde-thing she has going on." She means to mutter it, but the force of her feelings makes it louder.

"Who doesn't?"

"Some men prefer brunettes," Bella says and begins walking. Edward follows, smiling around the lip of his coffee cup as he sips it, but fails to mention that he is, in fact, one of these men.

Doesn't mean he can't admire Tanya's great rack, though. He's feeling playful and light, finally comprehending that Bella was never with Jake. That maybe like him, she too has been held down by whatever it is they shared. Inversely, it buoys him, and he can't remember feeling this at ease in months, if ever. It's strange because he and Bella still have so much farther to go, but it feels like hope is emanating from so many parts of him, and the rest are just too content to question it.

"What do you think? About Tanya?" he asks, purposefully ambiguous.

"What? Obviously, she's gorgeous, but can we talk about the case now?" Bella shoots back, irritated more over her jealousy than by Edward himself.

"I _was_ talking about the case," Edward says. This whole time, Bella has been walking huffily in front of him, missing the various looks of entertainment and amusement on his face. "What do you think? Suspect?"

"I don't know. Her timing and motivation for moving here is bland enough to either be fishy or innocent, but I didn't get an overwhelming sense of anything sinister," Bella replies and then huffs, "I wish we could just Sourceror them all."

Edward chuckles. "Me too, but it'd be slightly suspicious if we started poking around in peoples' personal space with that machine."

She sighs but smiles. "True. What now?"

"Refill on coffee, then back to the hotel and contact Marcus?" Edward suggests before reminding, "We still… We still have to ask him about Carlisle."

"Oh, God. That was just this morning," Bella mutters as they walk back to the diner. Edward nods his agreement, letting out a gust of a sigh.

As a fresh pot of coffee brews behind the counter, spreading the welcomingly warm smell of roasting beans through the air, the equally warming Esme chats with the two. "My, Forks is certainly a busy, busy place these days," she muses off-handedly, but both Bella and Edward are on guard.

"What do you mean, Mrs. Evensen?" Edward asks politely. There's something so boyish in the way he asks that Bella, even knowing the innocence is feigned, can't help being as charmed as Esme. A small smile plays on her face as she looks at him, but she quickly drops it when she sees the older woman eyeing her suspiciously. However, inside, she's still smiling. The weight of words has been lifted off her heart, and she is light in a way she hasn't felt in a long time; light in the same way as Edward.

Esme can't help the smug smile of her own as she replies, "Please, Edward, call me Esme. And I simply meant that the whole town seems to be in a bout of spring fever."

"What do you mean?"

"Just that between Tyler and Lauren, Rose and Emmett, even Ben's strange infatuation with Angela this morning—this town seems to be full of couples," she says, meaningfully eyeing the two in front of her. But Bella and Edward interpret her words differently—because in their minds, Esme, too, is paired up, with a man who is not only not her husband, but is not even human.

"The town of love. Guess Forks is the Paris of the Northwest," Bella cracks, shuddering inwardly at how untrue that statement is. Edward's lopsided grin seems to agree. "So it's not usually like this, Esme?"

Her laughter is as warm as the caramel hues in her hair. "Not at all. Between all these couples, the new residents, and that rather pushy girl who was asking all those questions…" Esme trails off. Both Edward and Bella's attention jumps to her words, but in order not to give themselves away, they wait for her to finish her sentence. "Forks is just plain strange these days."

Not trusting herself to infuse the right amount of insouciance, Bella lets Edward ask, "What pushy girl, Mrs.—I mean, Esme?" If Bella weren't so intently waiting for Esme's answer, she'd have a hard time not smiling at the perfect delivery of detached curiosity and flattering respect in Edward's tone.

"Oh, she was…actually, _that_ girl," Esme says, pointing out the window.

Edward and Bella follow her gaze to where a tall, raven-haired girl is clearly bombarding a frazzled Ben Cheney with questions, gesturing to his boom box, and then to Forks High in the distance before jerking her thumb back at Newton Outfitters.

Someone is asking questions in Forks and, since it's not Bella and Edward, it's a problem.

* * *

_For those of you who asked if there'd be singing in this story... there it is. Technically, there's a song every chapter though._ I wrote a one shot for the Roseward contest. _You probably saw 'Roseward' and ran screaming but if you didn't its in my profile. It's canon, though, so maybe you E/B purists can still enjoy it. Thanks always to **moonlightdreamer333** & **amerymarie** for making this so much better. **daisy3853** is earning herself a lifetime worth of hugs for prereading.  
I beta for two _fantastic_ stories: _Clockwork_ by _DerdriuoFaolain_ & _The Art Teacher_ by _spanglemaker9_. You absolutely must be reading them both. Both the authors and their stories blow me away._

_You guys are awesome, but you know that already. Sorry I didn't get around to review replying this time, I'll get there on the next one so let me know what you thought?  
_


	7. Against All Odds

**moonlightdreamer333** and **amerymarie** somehow salvage a story from the scraps I give them. thank you, ladies. **daisy3853** spoils me in too many ways. I adore them all. mistakes are all mine.  
and mini rant: ffnet's word count is whack. this chapter is about 600 words less than it says it is.  
and happy birthday, souplover9!

* * *

**Chapter Seven.  
Against All Odds,**  
we seem to actually be getting along.

Edward and Bella watch the girl continue her interrogation. With each question she assaults Ben with, he takes a step back, she a step forward, till she's cornered him like cowering prey.

"Should we rescue Cheney?" Edward asks.

Bella shakes her head. "I don't think so. We should wait till she's gone, and then see if he can give us any information about her."

"If Ben can still form words by then. I'm not sure we should wait," Edward says, an impish amusement slipping into his smile. "It seems cruel."

"You know what Aro said. 'Observe, observe, observe'," Bella comments dryly. He watches as suddenly, her eyes follow something over his shoulder, burning bright with alertness. Her shoulders form a daunting line that matches the seriousness of her mouth and he knows, she's in business mode.

"Carlisle is here," she mutters.

Edward nods. "We need to figure out if he's a part of this or not."

"Yeah, we do, but first we have to figure out how."

The devious smile that twists Edward's handsome features only makes him more attractive. "I have an idea."

The look on his face is dangerous—he's about to take a risk and Bella's on guard. She and Edward have such different styles, in work as in life—she's careful, measured, always sure of the steps she takes, while he is daring, provoking and even provocative, sometimes. If they were ever faced with a sleeping dragon—which hasn't happened _yet_—Edward would poke at it to wake and confront the beast, whereas Bella would carefully catalogue every detail before taking any action, which would be cautious in itself. This inherent opposition is the root cause of much of their sparring, but also much of their success.

"Masen, whatever you going to do... don't." The warning in her voice is as good as fuel to his insubordinate fire.

"Just go with it, okay?" he mumbles back.

Before she can try convincing Edward otherwise, Carlisle slides onto the stool next to him, as if complicit in whatever crazy plan the younger man has. Edward introduces himself and Bella to Carlisle, because in a town this small, the lack of an introduction is more conspicuous than the initiating of one. Esme sidles up to the counter where they're all seated, her smile as warm as the coffee she pours for them. Bella eyes Carlisle's cup, knowing that it will be at the same level when he leaves.

"Carlisle, I see you've met Edward and Bella," she says. "How are you all?"

"Fine," Carlisle says.

"Fine," Bella says.

"Not so great," Edward replies, adopting an overly dismayed expression. "I feel like I haven't slept in _years_." He turns to Carlisle. "You must know what I mean. I bet you _never_ sleep."

A tiny furrow appears between Carlisle's eyebrows and it would be indiscernible, if not for stark contrast to the rest of his unnaturally smooth face. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Since you're a…" Edward says, deliberately pausing. "Doctor."

It appears Edward has interpreted Aro's motto 'Observe, observe, observe' as 'Instigate, instigate, instigate'.

"Oh, um… Well, I manage. It's not so bad here. A small town doctor is hardly faced with many emergencies. That's one of the reasons I enjoy living in Forks." But the way his golden eyes flick almost too fast to Esme betrays that it's not the main reason.

"Oh, yup." Edward releases an exaggerated sigh. "Yup, yup, yup. You know, maybe I'm just hungry. I haven't really fed on something in a while. I could really use a _bite_."

For a second, Bella entertains a vision of grabbing the freshly baked pie on display at the end of the the counter and slamming into Edward's face, saying, "But, you _said_ you were hungry." But unlike Edward, she has a bit of sense and so, she just seethes in her bar stool.

"Are you hungry, Edward?" Esme asks, trying to use a blanket of obliviousness to smother whatever suspicions Edward may be raising. "You should try the Reuben, it's our specialty."

"Everyone does say that it's great," Carlisle adds.

An odd atmosphere has settled over the four—one of "Do you know that I know that you know that I know?" or something equally as convoluted. Esme and Carlisle both look on edge even as they try to mask it, and Bella can easily see that their defenses are raised. She has to give Edward credit—his tactics have revealed that Esme most definitely knows that Carlisle is a vampire.

"Alright, then," Edward agrees, unfurling that irresistibly sunny smile of his. "I don't eat Reubens often, but if it's what everyone likes…" He tilts his head slightly to look at Bella before saying, words slightly slurred due to the smugness of his smirk, "Venom Rome, do as Romans do."

She's going to kill him; if looks could do it, he'd already be dead.

Gleefully ignoring Bella's thunderous expression, he turns back to Esme. "So, is it too early for a drink? I'd _love_ a Bloody Mary."

At this, Bella kicks him sharply in the shin. The wince he tries to suppress barely satisfies her.

"Well," Carlisle says, standing up abruptly. He manages, with some effort and despite the tense expression in his eyes, to smile amiably. "I must be getting back to work. No rest for the wicked."

Bella can practically see Edward's quip in his eyes when their gazes meet. _No rest for vampires either._

"Actually, Carlisle, I'll walk you out," Edward says, blissfully paying no regard to the doctor's cringe when he clamps a hand down on vampire's shoulder. It is clear Carlisle doesn't like to be touched, most likely because of the icy temperature of his skin. "I've got some business to attend to myself." Edward holds up his cell phone in show, but he meets Bella's eye intentionally, then slides his gaze out the window, and she knows he's going to talk to Ben Cheney, who is loitering on the street outside the diner despite the departure of his inquisitor.

"Alright. It was lovely to meet you, Bella. Do say hi to your father for me," Carlisle says with a smile. His voice still has that polished tone to it, an inherent means of keeping at arm's-length anyone who may try to step closer, mistaking his politeness for friendship. But that all melts away, his next two words burning with something all too human. "Goodbye, Esme."

Their eyes meet for a quick second and Bella understands why it is so fleeting. Were they to look any longer, surely the longing, that ache, their pining would be apparent to anyone around them.

The men walk out, Edward's hand still on Carlisle's shoulder. He's thoroughly enjoying it—he's never made a vampire squirm before. He thinks that when he gets back to headquarters, he's going to try giving Marcus a hug, just for shits and giggles.

Even if she wanted to—and she doesn't, really—Bella can't stop herself from watching Edward as he walks away, eyes trailing down his broad back to his tapered waist, then a little lower, thinking that his long legs and fantastic, taut ass give new meaning to the phrase "graceful exit".

And almost comically, standing next to her, Esme has the same look on her face as Bella does—the slightly open mouth, the hungry eyes feasting on the sight in front of her, an utterly womanly appreciation for the specimen of man in front of her, except that Esme's gaze is directed toward the good doctor.

Only a few minutes later, after Esme has gone back to her business, Edward returns shaking his head.

"By the time I said goodbye to Carlisle, Ben was gone," he informs her, and then finally notices the twin pools of brown rage aimed in his direction. "What?"

"What was that little stunt you just pulled ?" Bella asks hotly.

"What, the thing with…" He trails off as his eyes dart toward Esme. "That was nothing," he says in a lower tone.

"This is our investigation, Edward," she hisses. "You can't just—"

"You seem to be under the misconception that we can't have a little fun while working."

"That's what we used to do. Look where that got us."

"That was different," he replies quickly. The earnestness in his words melts her ire against her volition. "_We_ were different. We're not those people anymore."

And as she looks at him, seeing a shade of sincerity in the green of his eyes that she's never before, she can't help but think that maybe he's right.

~-O-~

That night, Edward Masen has a dream. It's nothing earth-shattering—it's not as if he's going to give MLK a run for his money. But in this dream he dreamed—not that it's as poetic as Fantine's either—he was there. And so was a little lady. Just not the one you'd expect.

He knows he's in a dream, but he doesn't know that he knows it's a dream, so everything has the quality of a Monet painting, a kind of blurred reality, and he struggles to make out the picture. There is a noise; it's jarring and slightly annoying, yet familiar and cherished. He's in a house of sorts, as more and more becomes coherent, then in a room with toys.

Suddenly, he's crippled by a stench in the air. It is a dream, so he can't smell the smell, he just _knows_ it is smelly. When he looks down, he finds his arms full—with a baby. She's a darling little girl with his crazy hair, and he immediately recognizes two things: one, this is his child; and two, his child is smellier and gassier than that visit to the ogre's swamp he once had to make. She needs a new diaper. Badly.

She begins speaking, her tiny mouth forming words too easily and too well enunciated, saying "Change me! Change me!" Her voice is like an adult's and sounds exactly like her mother's, whose identity Edward knows without a doubt thanks to that strange, dreamlike surety.

Suddenly, it feels as if an earthquake is rocking through the house. He attempts to hold on to the child more tightly in order to protect her, but she's gone and he somehow knows, in that nebulous, oneiric way, that he'll never hold her again. Despite her absence, the stench remains. The earthquake is getting worse, everything in his world rattling and rolling, but strangely, nothing is moving out of place, falling or breaking. It's the house itself, shaking harder and stronger until finally, his consciousness breaks through and he is faced with Bella, the erstwhile mother of his smelly child, pushing on his shoulder, hissing, "Edward, you've overslept. Get up!"

He's rather disoriented, unable to break out from the startling reality of his dream and the strange haze of sleep that looms over him.

Even as he rouses, the vivid dream lingers, the affection and tenderness he felt like warm blanket that refuses to let him fully wake. He can't shake it, how he felt for dream-Bella even when she wasn't present, and it bleeds into how he feels for the real, somewhat pissed-off, Bella.

When Edward finally appears, ready for the day in yet another pristine, pressed suit, Bella doesn't even bother trying to fight the urge to admire him. The charcoal fabric hugs his shoulders, tucking in at his waist, and she knows he'll look ridiculous—as he has been—compared to the flannel-and-jeans uniform most Forksians adhere to, but she can't help thanking God, Versace and whomever else is responsible for suit jackets for the way it smoothes down his flat, hard chest, drawing attention to the lovely, masculine shape of his torso.

He seems distracted and troubled by something, the frown on his face turned inward, but she's too scared to ask what it is, so they drive to the diner in silence. Almost the second they sit down, Edward spots Ben Cheney out the window and dashes out to talk to him. Esme stops by their booth with her perpetual pot of coffee. "You and Edward seem to be getting along better."

Bella's face doesn't harden, but Esme can see a brick wall rising behind her brown eyes. "What do you mean?"

The older lady chuckles. "Bella, the first time you came in here, I almost put you at separate tables for fear that one of you would reach across and strangle the other."

Bella smiles, and barely notices Esme noticing the way her gaze drifts easily and automatically to where Edward is talking to Ben. "Yeah, we... we had some issues, but we're working on them." There's something about Esme, an undeniable kindness in her face—motherly, but not matronly. She's so far from Renee's scatterbrained, paved with good intentions, running like hell whirlwind, but Esme is just what Bella would picture an ideal mother-figure to be like: calm and calming, with a smile that, even when not on her lips, is in the crow's feet near her eyes.

"That's nice to hear," Esme says. Her gaze drifts toward Edward then back to the girl in front of her, and the look in Bella's eyes is so much like the hope she once had, the hope she continues to hold on to, that her next words slip out without her even actively thinking them. "It's so easy to separate, to let the pieces fall away without realizing it. Putting them, _yourself_, back together—don't let that take the rest of your life, Bella."

Their brown eyes meet, Esme's lighter ones heavy with emotion, Bella's deeper ones, darker with understanding. Almost as if snapping out of a trance, Esme smiles, pouring coffee in Edward's and Bella's cups, and says, "I'll get you some milk."

"Oh, no. That's okay. Neither Edward or I take milk in our coffee. I'm lactose intolerant," Bella informs her.

Esme can't help but smile. "Just like your dad."

Somehow, even that doesn't sound as uncomfortable to Bella as it did before, so she tries on the words herself. "Just like my dad."

Esme glances around the near empty diner before sliding into the booth. "So I hear you're thinking of moving here?"

Bella is rather taken aback. "Umm... yeah. Well, maybe. Where did you hear that?"

"Small town, Bella," Esme says. There's something about Esme that makes her feel kindred. Bella is excellent, not necessarily at reading people, but reading the tone and cadence of her relationship to them, and it is due to this instinct that she asks her next question.

"Esme, what can you tell me about Carlisle?"

Esme wears shock just as gracefully as she does the smile she quickly morphs it into. "Dr. Cullen? Oh, he moved here a few years ago. Used to be a big city doctor, but decided it wasn't the life for him. He's a wonderful soul."

It's almost a total regurgitation of what that James character had said, as if the words are being recited from a pamphlet. Following her gut, Bella pushes a little more. "That's what anyone can tell me about Carlisle. What can _you_ tell me about him?"

This time it is Esme who erects the wall. "I'm not quite sure I'm understanding you correctly. And if I am, I am quite sure I don't like what you're insinuating." Though her voice isn't cold, there is none of her signature warmth, and this in itself feels a bit like a gust of cold wind.

Bella backtracks quickly. "I apologize, but I wasn't attempting to insinuate anything, Esme."

She softens a bit. "You should be aware that to someone more old-fashioned, like me, anytime you ask a woman about any man other than her husband, you're insinuating something."

Playing the repentant child, Bella jokes, "Again, I'm sorry. You know, I've heard my generation was born without the gene that enables a sense of propriety." Esme smiles lightly and Bella feels forgiven. A short silence falls over them and, as Bella sneaks a look at the older woman, she can tell that Esme is thinking hard.

"Why," Esme says, her words drawn out and carefully measured, "are you asking about Carlisle?"

And there it is. Esme can pretend to be as offended by Bella's questioning and indifferent to the doctor as she wants, but she can't suppress her curiosity or her attachment to Carlisle. Edward and Bella's initial assumption was correct—there is definitely something going on between Esme and Carlisle.

But Bella doesn't quite know how to answer the question, so she is infinitely thankful when Edward comes back into the diner. He can almost visibly see the tense, taut atmosphere between the two women, hear the cry for assistance in Bella's body language, and knows just how to answer.

"Good morning… well, afternoon, I suppose. How are you, Esme?" he asks, his overenthusiastic demeanor blanketing over everything else. Seeing Esme in his seat, he nudges Bella's shoulder with his hip, and sits down next to her when she scoots into the booth. The whole exchange is so easy, so natural, neither of them even register it.

Esme does, and it brings a faraway look into her kind eyes, a sadness that belies the strength of her smile. Even if she doesn't know the source, Bella catches this look and she knows, without the knowledge of how, that there is far, far more to Esme and Carlisle than she's been suspecting. And somehow, she will find out.

The older lady excuses herself, but Edward remains where he is sitting, his shoulder brushing against hers quite frequently, and yet again, it's so akin to instinct that neither notice. It is almost like there is some thing—perhaps the same thing that compelled the honesty of their confessions in the past few days, the same thing that has cleared the air and clarified the history between them—that has afforded them this comfort.

"So I got nothing," Edward says. "Cheney has no idea who she is, other than her name: Leah Clearwater. We can look her up when we get back to the hotel since we have access to records, but Ben's still reeling from almost being arrested—and still totally preoccupied with how to win over Angela."

"Are you trying to tell me that morning serenade did _not_ work?"

"Oh yeah, Bella? You swooned for Cheney's song?" Edward teases. Bella snorts indelicately. It's just a snort, a strange noise from the back of her throat and out through her nose that is the opposite of attractive and sexy, and yet, Edward cherishes it—to him, it signifies how comfortable Bella is around him, and that means more to him that any coy look through her lashes ever could.

"You know," Edward continues, with a laugh, "he got kicked off his shift at Thriftway because he was mooning over her."

"Seriously? God, it's ridiculous how some people let their personal lives interfere with their work. It's so utterly unprofessional."

"I know."

Insert something about pots, kettles and the color black here, please.

~-O-~

There is no drive to the station today—they've got somewhere else to go. In his report, Charlie mentioned that in addition to the strange behavior occurring in Forks, a strange natural phenomenon had popped up. And sure enough, after a short hike through the wet brush of the Olympic rainforest, they come across a flat, abundant meadow—completely contrary to the lush woods that surround it. It is as odd as it is lovely—purple flowers grow everywhere, and with the green of the grass, it looks a little like a garden haven, an earthly heaven.

Bella and Edward set to work as he hands her a bunch of the flora he's plucked and she puts them in the appropriate baggies to send off to headquarters for analysis. It'll take a few days, but even without instruments, they can both sense the presence of Magic. This place is just a little too beautiful, each flower too perfectly formed, each petal too purple to be real. There's a synthetic quality to its beauty and therefore, it can never be as tangible in its splendor as nature.

After she's put all the specimens in their appropriate place, Bella turns back to Edward. He holds out one flawless flower to her and she frowns. "I already got all we need for testing."

He reaches for her hand, taking the small bags as he presses the flower into her palm, shrugging and saying, "I know."

Almost immediately thereafter, he snaps out of the near-instinctual haze he'd been under when he handed her the flower. _That damn dream,_ he thinks. It's looming over him, and he's unable to shake that feeling of contentment he had in it—smelly baby and all. He's too scared to see whether she's smiling or scoffing at his simple action so he turns away.

It's a shame because she's smiling. Widely. The violet of that too-pretty flower suddenly seems stunning to her, and when Edward can't help but slide his eyes back to her, he is struck by how the purple matches her pretty pink blush perfectly.

"You want… you want to stay here for a little while?" Edward asks. "The weather's fantastic and I don't know… it's just nice not to be around any of the crazies for a little while."

Bella nods, still smiling as she twirls her flower—for it is hers—and drops into a seated position with a little 'mmph'. He flops down next to her, imitating her drop perfectly, from the way his arms bounce slightly as he falls, to the huffy little noise he lets out when he hits the ground, and the silly smile he gives back to her.

Perhaps, it's the mood, perhaps it's the meadow, or maybe it's just them, but there is an easiness in the air, spreading through the gentle breeze that ruffles his hair a little bit like the way she used to. She looks at him, studying the way the soft smile on his face etches a line in his cheek, like the ghost of a dimple that never was. His long lashes are nearly gold in the glow of the sinking sun this afternoon and, though she's seen him a million times, maybe more, seeing him here in this meadow, surrounded by thatches of perfect flowers, she feels all the awe and affection of seeing him for the first time.

Edward can feel her look at him, brown eyes always studying, picking apart and putting together all that she observes into categories that will inform her emotions and actions. He knows her so well, too well, that he doesn't try and catch her gaze—doing so would only make her look away, abruptly ending the moment. He likes feeling her eyes on him, likes the weight of her gaze, likes knowing that her thoughts, whatever they may be, are on him. So he waits until she looks away, and when he glances at her, she is staring at the flower in her hands, her smile so soft, so perfect that she may not even realize she's smiling.

But this is Edward and Bella, and talking is like breathing for them, the way their words flow out to be exchanged and then inhaled again, so the silence doesn't last long, ebbing away into easy conversation.

"I swear to God, my dad is the only normal one in this town," Bella muses.

Edward's eyebrows shoot up in pleasant surprise at her ease in calling Charlie her father, but he says nothing about it. "Yeah. He's pretty cool, actually."

"He is. Too bad he lives in this loony bin," she sighs. "Too bad we're stuck here. The best we can aim for is getting this case done and getting out of here before the aftermath."

"Aftermath?" Edward asks.

"Yeah. Love spell? Tons of couples? All in the throes of passion?" The disgusted look on Edward's face matches her shudder perfectly. "It can only lead to lots and lots of kids. Forks'll have its own baby boom. And I, appalled to think that _these_ people are going to be the ones that raise them."

"True. But who knows? Maybe Forks has a very strong oral tradition."

"What does passing stories down generations have to do with anything?"

"Oh, that's not the type of oral tradition I meant." He grins salaciously, and that in itself should tip Bella off.

"There's another type of oral tradition?" she asks, still oblivious.

"Oh, yes. Practicing it is a good way to keep people from having babies at all."

"What are you talking... oh, Edward!" she admonishes, but she can't not laugh. He laughs with her, more at the mock outrage that she struggles so hard, and fails so spectacularly to maintain.

When their laughter teeters off naturally, Edward says, "Well, I think I'm more worried about what is going to happen when this spell wears off."

"What do you mean?"

"These people are all falling all over themselves to be in love, to be with the one they want. But none of it is real. None of this is _real_ love."

"How do you know that? Until we determine the nature of the spell, there's no way we can say that it's not actually causing love."

"You can't _cause_ love. That's not how it works," Edward replies, surprisingly fierce in his assertion.

"Because you're such an expert on love?" Even though her words are confrontational, her tone is mild, reflecting the new rapport they've found with each other.

"No, I'm not, but I know what I think." He pauses to gather his thoughts. "Look at the way they're going about their wooing: all these grand gestures, these ridiculous expressions. It reeks of insincerity. When did saying 'I love you' become not enough? Why do you have to sing it or tattoo it or dress it up and make it pretty? Shouldn't the words be enough on their own?"

For a long moment, Bella regards the man in front of her—because that's really what he's become. Somewhere between the heartbreak and hatred they've shared, he's changed from just a guy to a man. She may have liked the guy she was seeing casually and sleeping with less casually, but this Edward, this man that she is seeing in a whole new light—he is even harder to resist. "That's a really nice sentiment, Edward."

"Thanks."

"Tell me something."

"Yeah?"

"When did you grow a vagina?" she asks, a sly smile on her face.

Edward grins back at her. "At around the same time you started acting like such a dickhead."

Their smiles and easy, amiable words carry through the afternoon, until the sun is as low as their spirits are high. Edward stands, holding out a hand to help Bella up. Whereas before she may have scoffed at the gesture, now she simply slips her hand into his with a small smile, eyelids fluttering slightly when that shiver his touch always ignites shimmies down her spine.

She rises to her feet and for a moment, Edward and Bella both pause. Instead of arguing or investigating or explaining or anything, they just stand, looking down at their linked hands, bathed in the colors of the sunset, just _being_, while the day gives up trying to stubbornly hold on and gives into the embrace of the evening.

It doesn't last for long at all. But even the coolness of their empty palms after they release their hands is no match for the warmth those few seconds filled them with.

~-O-~

Later that night, Edward is lying in bed, the weight of his ruminations keeping him from fully sinking below the surface of sleep. His brain is awash with a million different thoughts, some fully formed, some barely finished, all centered around Bella.

Then suddenly, with the force and clarity only a revelation can incite, Edward's eyes fly open. If he were a cartoon, there would be a light bulb switching on over his head.

He gets what his dream meant.

In it, he should have been cleaning up the mess from the diaper that came about because of something he and Bella did together—create a baby. Now how he comes to his conclusion is anyone's guess—as is most of what goes on in Edward's head—but to him, the moral of the fabulist dream is simple:

He's supposed to clean up the shit between him and Bella.

On the other side of the wall, Bella's thinking about Edward. Big surprise. If this were a movie, their predictability and preoccupation with each other would be played to pathetic perfection by Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey.

But the nature of Bella's ruminations are slightly less pure. There's a big 'have dirty thoughts about Edward' party on her side of their shared wall and every part of her is eager to participate—in fact, they're RSVP-ing with gusto. She can't get the picture of his body out of her mind, can't stop it from inviting all the other images she has of his body—near hers, on hers, in hers—to the forefront of her thoughts. Her hands are fisting and her toes are curling as she remembers his frequent habit of sleeping in the nude. She can't help but wonder if he still does it, and her breathing hitches, stops, then comes in frantic pants as she thinks of his nearly naked appearance, direct out of her fantasies and into her sight, from a few days prior. If nothing else, distance has certainly made her libido grow fonder.

Just as she's about to go to town, hand sliding down her abdomen, there's a knock on their connecting door. Out of instinct, she yanks her hand above the covers and practically screeches, "Come in!"

The door opens and Edward's face pops in through the small sliver it has opened. "Hey."

"Hey," she says, voice still shaky from almost being caught.

"I just wanted to say goodnight." He pauses because that's not _just_ what he wanted to say. "And that… I'm going to try and be better."

"Be better at what?" Her voice squeaks slightly. If he's talking about what she was just thinking about, he was already pretty damn good.

"Be better at... not bugging you, I guess," he says, sighing as he steps fully into the room. "I don't want you to think of me as the guy who pushes your buttons."

Never mind that he was the guy she was going to think of as she pushed her own button.

She gives him a skeptical look. He laughs, his smile breaking over his face and breaking some of the tension in the room. "Alright, so I'll probably still bug you. And you'll still irritate me, too. And we'll fight. A lot. But that's okay, I think. That's how we work. It's just, you should know that... whatever other shit has been going, I'm glad you're the one working with me on this. I couldn't have asked for someone more competent."

"Thank you." There's so much of a rush, from what she had been about to do, from being almost caught, and from Edward's very solid presence so close to where she was about to fantasize him being. But more than that, Edward's words sink in—he really is trying to make things better, attempting not to be the acerbic, belittling person he was just a few days ago when they were first reunited in Aro's office. Whether it's the change in scenery or a change of heart, she can't know, but she does appreciate it.

Putting on a ridiculous falsetto in an attempt to imitate her elicits a loud laugh from Bella, as he prompts, "And Edward, I'm so _beyond_ pleased, utterly tickled, delighted, joyous, you're the one—"

"And I'm glad you're the one working on this with me, too" she says, smiling as she realizes she actually means it. There are so many variant levels to their relationship—and at a romantic level, it's still too scrambled. But at a professional, and maybe even platonic level, it's finding its legs. It won't be long until it hits the ground running.

He grins back. "Look at that. Neither of us even rolled our eyes! There may hope for us yet, Bella," he says, as he exits her room. He closes the door behind him, but in spirit, it remains open.

It wasn't grandiose or particularly poignant, perhaps barely significant compared to the confessions of the last few days, but there it is: a truce. Both of them fall asleep minutes later, smiles planted on their faces, hope blooming in their hearts.

Move over Versailles, Camp David and the Hague. You ain't got nothing on the Forks' Motel Accord.

* * *

Okay so no review replies to last chapter. Sorry! To make up for it:  
1) this chapter much sooner!  
2) I'll send a little outtake of pre-break up E & B as a thank you to everyone who reviews,  
3) next chapter soon too!

Sound good?

So so so much love to you guys who comment, rec, tweet or just talk about this story on the various forums, especially you fantastic ladies on ADF and Edwardville.  
Find me on twitter and chat me up! I'm whatsmynom.

Thanks for being the coolest. I'm so lucky to have you all as readers.


	8. All Out of Love

**Moonlightdreamer333** & **Amerymarie** betaed this so fast and on xmas weekend. Awesome isn't even the word. **Daisy3853** is the Riggins to my Street, even though I'm pretty sure Riggins can't preread like her. Or read even.  
Mistakes are all, always mine. And FF word count is lying again.

**

* * *

Chapter Eight.**  
**All Out of Love.**_  
_Out of love. Not in it. Definitely _not_ in love. Nope.

You know some thing is wrong when you can summarize the progress of a relationship in Simon & Garfunkel songs. If last night was all about building a _Bridge Over Troubled Water_, then today, there is only the _Sound of Silence_. This morning, all is not as smooth as it was the night previous. You'd think that now, with most of their dirty laundry aired out and that little truce from the night before, Edward and Bella would finally function like normal people around each other instead of the humanized version of Tom & Jerry they've been playing.

You'd think wrong. When they emerge the next morning, ready for yet another full day of fantastical Forks fuckery, it's with shy, bashful smiles, darting glances, and to complete the cliché, even a little foot shuffling.

To an extent, Edward and Bella's tentativeness is understandable. The first part of their relationship was expressed physically. Then it was expressed angrily. Now, with neither sex nor grudges to guide their interaction, they are flailing a bit, testing the waters to see if they will sink or swim in this new situation.

But there is something in the air this morning, that makes both of them cheery, despite the gloomy weather looming in front of them, and their silence is accompanied by smiles.

Maybe it is because the Ghost of Break-ups Past has stopped hanging over them, but Bella can admit, easily and even happily, that there were good times—a lot of them—and that she wrongly colored her memories with the garish hues of regret. There were soft moments, pretty and happy, like when Edward would kiss her ear instead of her lips; or when he named the freckle underneath her left breast; or when she'd wake up to the disappointment of an empty, cooling bed only to have it tempered by the sweetness of a fresh cup of steaming coffee by the bedside.

What Edward has always done so well, the thing that has undone her many a time, is to bring some sweet to his sultry spice. He blazes and burns, consuming and scorching, but the warmth underneath it all is gentle, not destructive.

So when they get to the car and he crosses over to hold the driver's side door open for her, not only in a demonstration of chivalry but a surrender in their daily battle as to who will drive, she can't help but smile, something rarely achieved before she has her first cup of coffee.

"My, my," she says, her teasing tone lending a lilt to her voice, "looks like I've spotted the rarest creature of them all this morning." She slides into the car, but Edward doesn't close the door, confused by her words.

"What creature?"

She grins at him, and lets it rest on her face even as she faces forward and turns the key in the ignition. "The gentleman," she answers and shuts the door.

It takes him a moment, but when he gets it, his smile warms her more than a cup of coffee ever could.

A few minutes later, when they are seated in the booth that has become their usual, Edward points out, "Hey, there's Carlisle. You ready for some mooning glances between him and Esme?"

"They're so obvious, I don't know how the whole town doesn't see it," Bella remarks. As if his body senses the ridiculous lack of self-awareness in their exchange even if Edward doesn't, he lets out a sneeze, punctuating the conversation.

However, both agents' attentions are still directed outside the window where, instead of heading into the diner, Carlisle has ducked around the side of the building, and out of view. Moments later, Esme almost knocks into Lauren and her full tray, trying to maneuver a large box through the narrow space behind the counter.

One of the patrons notices her struggle and approaches, trying to take the large, clearly heavy object from her. "Esme, let me help with—"

"No!" she says emphatically. She takes a short breath and calms herself as she swings around, so the object is no longer in reach of the attempted Samaritan. "I'm fine. Please, go back to your food; don't worry about me." She shuffles, with some effort, out of the door.

"Ten bucks says if we go out back, we'll solve this case," Edward declares, before sneezing again.

"Bless you," Bella says, even as they both rush up and out of the diner. But when they get there, there is hide nor hair of Esme and Carlisle. The box Esme was carrying is discarded and empty—or perhaps, emptied, and when Bella picks it up, it is cold to the touch.

"Where the hell did they go?" Edward asks.

She frowns. "I don't know but all I can think is that if Carlisle is a… _you know_, then he's aware of more Magic than a regular person. It's very likely whatever is going on here can be linked back to him—and Esme, too, I'm willing to bet."

"We need to call headquarters, see if Marcus has him in the registry. And speaking of—what the hell is going on there? No one has called in for a debrief in days," Edward notes.

"Yeah, that's a good point. Let's head back to our rooms and see if we can get anyone on the phone. They haven't even sent us the results of the sample we mailed almost a week ago—usually it only takes a few days."

"Argh," Bella grunts a few minutes later, hopping on one foot as she leans against car, which has just pulled into the Forks' Motel parking lot.

"What's wrong?"

"My foot's asleep." She winces as she takes her shoe off. Edward walks back to her and crouches down. "What are you doing?"

"Just hold still." He pokes at her foot, sending a jolt through her body.

"Ow!" He pokes again. "Edward! Stop that!" He pokes again and she yelps as he grabs her foot when she tries to move it away from him.

"Just hold still, Bella. This'll get rid of the numbness," he says.

"How is poking and irritating me going to bring back the feeling?" Edward doesn't answer, just tightens his grip on her foot and pokes her more. "Jesus, you're a pain in my ass."

Edward grins even as he holds up the finger he is poking her with. "What's that? You have a pain in your ass? I can take care of that for you, too." She rolls her eyes as she looks away but smiles and says 'bless you' as he sneezes again. She doesn't want to admit it, but slowly, by poking and prodding her, Edward has, in fact, brought feeling back.

She means poking and prodding her _foot_. And that he's bought feeling back _into her foot_.

Why yes, the metaphor _is_ rather obvious.

A short while later, they're settled in the room. After giving their agent codes to dispatch, they're transferred to Aro's office. And that's where the peculiarities begin. First, Gianna take eight rings to answer.

"That's four rings," Edward declares, somewhat astonished. "Aro would never stand for the phone ringing four times. Where the hell is Gianna?"

"Maybe he fired her," Bella suggests.

"For what?"

"Not answer the phone quickly enough?" They both stop their conversation when someone picks up.

It's look of disbelief Edward gives Bella is nicely paired with the one of confusion she return. They ask to get transferred to Aro, but are put on hold for nearly ten minutes. Then when someone finally picks up, it is Stefan, one of Aro's deputy directors.

"Hello Agent Masen, Agent Swan," he says, polite but hurried.

"Hello, Director Vladek—we were actually hoping to speak with Director Aronson," Edward clarifies.

"Er… yes… Aro—wait hold on one minute." It is actually another four minutes that they are put on hold before yet another deputy director comes on the line. "Masen, Swan," he intones.

"Alistair, we were hoping to speak with Aro," Bella repeats.

"Yes, but at this point in time, that is not possible. We understand that you are long overdue for a debriefing as well as the results from some samples you sent into the lab," Alistair replies, tersely. "Marcus will contact to you in the near future regarding a meeting time. Until then, you carry on with your investigation and submit your daily reports as you have been doing." His tone invites no questions, and Bella and Edward don't get a chance to ask any as he hangs up immediately thereafter.

"What was that?" Edward asks.

"Why is Marcus setting up a meeting? He _should_ be sitting in on it, but I thought we were reporting to Aro with this one."

"Some thing is going on at headquarters."

"Yeah, well, until we actually get to talk to someone for more than thirty seconds, we're not going to find out what. I guess until then, we just sit tight."

"I'm actually going to sleep tight—I'm feeling really tired. We don't have anything scheduled for tonight, do we?" Edward asks.

Bella shakes her head and with that, they separate for the night.

~O~

Bella wakes up late the next morning but judging from the silence next door, Edward isn't up yet. He still isn't moving around when she emerges from her shower. When she knocks quietly on the connecting door and gets no answer, she wonders if he is even in the room at all.

She opens the door and is beholden with a precious sight—Edward, curled up in a tight ball, still sound asleep. She's never, in all the nights she shared his bed, known him to sleep in that position, and as she approaches him, she notices he's shivering rather violently. She presses her palm to his forehead. Edward is hot.

And not the kind of hot he usually is.

He's running a high fever. He wakes slowly, not quite fully, and mutters, "Bella? Keep your hand there, please? It feels really nice."

"Edward, I think you're sick," she informs him. "You've got a fever."

This rouses him. "What? No," he says, barely able to raise his voice above a mumble. "I'm not sick. I don't get sick."

"Edward…"

"No, I'm not. I'm fine; just a little hot. And is it me, or is it really cold in here?"

"Listen to yourself. You just claimed to be hot and then asked if it was cold!"

"I'm fine, Bella, you're just—" he cuts himself off as he attempts to sit up and fails, falling back to the bed. "Okay. I'm dizzy. Not sick. But really dizzy."

Bella can't help but chuckle. "Alright, fine. You're _dizzy_. You should spend the day resting though—you don't want your… _dizziness_ to get worse."

"I hear you saying dizzy, but meaning 'sick'. If I was sick, could I have…" But he's asleep before he can finish telling Bella whatever it is he could have.

She drives to the drugstore and picks up some medicine, hoping that he's suffering from a twenty-four hour virus as opposed to something more serious. When she returns to his room, he is still fast asleep and still shivering, though this time, he's kicked off his sheets. She tucks him back in, and leaves a note, with instructions on when to take what medicine and what to do to lower his temperature. She's too keyed up and not creepy enough to just sit around and watch him sleep, so she goes to grab some food. Afterward, she's on her way to the station to see Charlie when she's stopped by a familiar and somewhat unwelcome voice.

"Bella, Bella!" James calls.

"Hello, Mr. Herring," she replies politely.

"Did you see what I did there?" he asks, smarmy grin in place.

"Uh… no. What did you do there?"

"_Bella_ Bella! I wasn't saying your name twice! 'Bella' means beautiful in Italian, you know," he says, roving her body with his eyes. There's only one thing worse than a lech, and that is a cheesy lech who thinks he's charming. "Has anyone told you how _bella_ you are?" Make that an unoriginal, cheesy lech who thinks he's charming.

While her ideal retort would be a slap in the face—or maybe a kick right in his Herringbone—Bella simply replies, "Uh, yes."

"I'm sure everyone tells you how pretty you—"

"What can I do for you today, Mr. Herring?"

"Oh, please, call me James. I don't see your gentleman fellow around. Is everything alright?"

"My what?"

"The tall fellow who is normally stuck to you like glue. Always looks like he's going to a funeral. Or a wedding. Or the Oscars."

"Oh, you mean Edward. He's not feeling well. And uh… we're not—he's not—my gentleman—"

"You mean to tell me… you and Edward aren't together?" James asks. It's a loaded question because no, they're not together, but so close they might as well be.

In truth, they've never really been able to define themselves. Whether fighting, flirting or fuc—fornicating, Edward and Bella aren't just people to each other, aren't a relationship or lack thereof. They aren't the sum of the words they speak or the ones they suppress. They're a feeling. For her, they're one of comfort, of home, of the only thing and person she ever really counted on. And even as he grounds her, she sets him free—rolling her eyes at his jokes, but never at him, staying steady and sure although he tends to turn off on tangents, never hesitating to tell him just what is going on in that fascinating mind of hers. They're not the type of people that are perfect for each other; they're utterly, wholly, humanly _im_perfect apart, and not much better together. That's the fun part.

"Thinking hard?" James interrupts her reverie.

She smiles, more because her thoughts are on Edward than because of the man in front of her. "Hardly thinking. And no, Edward and I aren't, uh, dating. We're just colleagues. And friends." The minute she says it, a leer appears on James' face that makes her regret her words.

"You're alone? Oh, Bella, what a shame. No one—especially not a girl as pretty as you—should be alone. That isn't the way it's supposed to be. Well, now that you're here in Forks, we can set you up. I bet there are men just lined up for you. What do you think?"

What she thinks is that he is strange and suspicious and sleazy. And then he steps closer, puts his hand on her arm and she thinks she wants to shower. "We'll find you a nice man, Bella. I'll dedicate all my efforts to it. A woman as beautiful as you shouldn't be alone."

She steps back. "I'm not alone."

He steps forward. "But if you're not with Edward, then you _are_ alone."

Jeez, voice her innermost insecurities, why don't you?

But if there's one good thing about Bella, it's that she is strong willed and has learned, since the incident, how to protect herself. And so, rather than being hurt on James' cutting words, she's trying to control her anger, which is rising because of his implications and his unwanted proximity.

"I'm fine, James. Your concern is wholly unnecessary," she replies, hoping the ice in her voice will shoo him away. Then he squeezes her arm with a sympathetic expression, and says, "Oh, Bella. It's okay. Everyone deserves someone."

Now Bella Swan has never, and will never, need a man to get out of a situation. She's smart and resourceful, and her sharp tongue and cutting remarks have shooed many a lesser man away. And while James is lesser, he's also stupider and doesn't see the hostility behind her crossed arms or hear the irritation behind her terse answers. She's on the verge of a full blown Bella Swan-song—both inappropriately and appropriately named as there is nothing _bella_ about it, but it is usually the last thing the receiver will ever hear from her, usually the last thing they'll ever _want_ to hear from her. Edward, while never having been on the receiving end, has borne witness to it a few times. Forget grown men like James, Bella's harangue has been known to make giants cry.

So it's safe to say that when a low, male cough interrupts their conversation just as Bella is about to unleash, that—despite appearances—it is more the dumbass who is being rescued than the damsel.

Bella smiles at their interrupter, surprised at how genuinely glad she is to see him. Charlie is surprised by the ease with which she greets him, when just a few days ago, they could barely look at one another. Not for the first time, he silently thanks whatever power (who is, unbeknownst to him, Aro) that allowed him this opportunity. He'd take a hundred love spells and thousands of crazy townspeople just to have the chance to know his child. And her smile says that this is that chance.

"Bella," he greets. No mustache twitch for her. She gets a full blown smile from her father—quite rare considering that neither Swan is really a grinner. The smile drops as soon as his look turns to James. There is a detached, intimidating iciness in Charlie's voice when he greets James that makes the man drop his hand from Bella's arm immediately. Bella is surprised she recognizes it—it's a look she has used before.

"Chief Swan! I was just chatting with your daughter!" James replies, oily smile not wavering. It drips down and falls a little when Charlie deliberately steps closer to Bella, forcing James to take a step back.

"Were you?" It is amazing the amount of formidable suspicion Charlie puts into two syllables. It's not something that can be learned in Chief school.

"Uh, yes. I was just telling her how lovely it is that she's come to our town."

"Really?" But this time, his question is warm and directed to the angry, yet amused brown eyes that are the mirror image of his own.

"Well, that wasn't _quite_ it," Bella says, stoking the fire of James' fear a little more.

"Was it, Mr. Herring?"

"Well, no. I was just telling her to call me James."

"And?"

"Oh, and that a girl as lovely as she is should be in a town as lovely as this," James says, trying too hard to affect a casual smile.

"With her lovely father," Charlie supplies.

"Yes. Exactly. With her f-father." Perhaps seeing how similar Charlie and Bella look in that moment, stern mouths in a line, each with one eyebrow arched, James falters and takes a step away from them.

"Kind of how you should be with your lovely wife, the lovely Victoria," Charlie suggests. Bella balks for a moment at the thought that he is married—he may not have been outright about it but she knows he was hitting on her.

"Oh, you know what? I think it's about dinner time," James says hurriedly. He looks at his wrist—there's no watch on it but still he says, "Yup, I'm late." And he quite literally scampers off.

Bella and Charlie share another smile before he clears his throat and the awkwardness seeps in. It is so typically Swan—to be instinctual and at ease when working, and completely the opposite without the guise of their jobs to lead them.

"So, I was thinking… uh, maybe you would like to join me for dinner. A break from diner food," Charlie asks. He hides behind that excuse for a second before summoning his courage. He'll be damned if, after all these years, he's just going to beat around the bush. Still, that's easier thought than said, so his words are nervous and frail. "It would be a nice opportunity to spend a little time together."

"Sure." It's something beyond politeness and deeper than instinct that propels those words out of her mouth without thinking. It's a chance for something she never even knew she could have—a father. They part after making plans and Bella can't help but look forward to the evening a bit.

Closer to the dinner, however, that feeling fades away into an erratic nervousness as she paces in front of Edward. He's up after having slept most of the day away, but his fever still rages on. He sits on the edge of the bed, eyebrows raised, eyes following her back and forth, to and fro, as she works herself into a tizzy.

"I mean, what was I thinking? I barely know him. We're going to have nothing to talk about. This is seriously going to be the most awkward dinner since the Pilgrims invited—"

"Bella," he says, trying to break through her agitated soliloquy. She's pacing even faster now, and combined with the light-headed, airy feeling of his fever, it's making him all too dizzy.

"You know, this is all Aro's fault. If he'd never assigned us to this case, then I wouldn't have to deal with all this," she rambles on. It doesn't miss Edward's attention that she only bemoans being assigned to duty in Forks, not with him. That makes him more light-headed than even the fever could, but in a whole new way.

But Bella is the Energizer Bunny of rants, and she is still going on and on and on. "I mean, he does this—you know he does this. He plays with people's lives, toys with their emotions. He totally set this situation up, took me off desk duty so that I could—"

"Get to know your father." Bella stops short, right in front of him, and turns to face him, wide eyed.

"Oh, God, Edward. I'm a terrible person. I'm getting this chance that so many people want—to get to know their dad—and all I can do is complain. What is wrong with me?" She's wailing a bit and he just can't handle it. Bella is not a wailer, and he is not Moby Dick.

Poor Melville humor aside, he knows, in that way that only Edward knows Bella, that she needs to calm down. So he stands, albeit slightly wobbly and more than a little woozy, and puts his hands on her shoulders, cringing on her behalf over how clammy and warm they are. When she still doesn't calm down, he does gently places one palm over her mouth and begins speaking soothing words.

But Bella has barely realized Edward is speaking. She's too enraptured by sensation of his skin against her lips and she can't help but think of how long it's been since she's kissed anybody. This isn't even a kiss, just his palm against her mouth to stop her prattling, but how does that line from _Romeo and Juliet_ go? "And palm to palm is holy's palmer's kiss." Too bad, old Will never wrote anything about palm to lips. Whatever else the move may incite in her, it's effective in halting her rant and mollifying her.

"… be okay, Bella. He's a good guy, he just wants to get to know—" Edward breaks off abruptly as her eyes meet his. Everything that needs to be said is right there, and he smiles at her as he lowers his hand. She smiles back and he knows his girl is going to be all right.

There's no need for you germaphobes to worry about contagion—it's rather clear whatever affliction he has, she's got it too.

Realizing she'll be late if she doesn't tear herself away from Edward right now, Bella does so, with great reluctance, and spouting words of caution. "Take a shower, it may help break your fever. And drink lots and lots of liquids. And you'll feel really hot but bundle up because—"

"Bella," he says, gently, halting her riotous instructions.

"I know, I know—you'll be fine."

"I know _you'll_ be fine, too."

And they don't say goodbye as she leaves, still smiling sweetly with a small amount of sorrow over having to part at all.

~O~

As Bella arrives at Charlie's house, the realization hits her that this was her first home. Having left as a baby, she has no memories of it, and it makes her a little sad. She is relieved, however, when Charlie doesn't make any comment about that, simply telling her that he's made stroganoff for dinner from a recipe from Paula Deen.

"Paula Deen?" Bella asks.

"I have a weakness for the Food Network," he admits sheepishly and she laughs.

"I would have never pegged you for a Paula Deen kind of guy."

"I know! Can you imagine the shame if this got around town? Let's keep it our secret, alright? No one else needs to know," Charlie states, in a tone of mock conspiracy, and Bella nods, smiling. It's the first thing that only she knows about her father and silly as it is, it makes her feel closer to him.

"Of course," she says.

"I mean, I watch sports too, y'know," he adds quickly. "In fact… there's a Mariners game on right now. You wouldn't mind if we watched while we ate, would you?"

She actually doesn't, relieved that the television can provide a source of conversation and commiseration. "I'm not much of a baseball fan," Bella admits.

"Oh. Oh! Well, I mean, we don't have to watch the game, we can watch something—"

"No, no," Bella says, inwardly cringing at their inability to communicate smoothly. "I meant, maybe… maybe you could explain to me what's going on? I mean, if that's not too annoying."

Mustache twitch. "Not annoying at all." And so, over a delicious meal, Charlie explains the ins and outs—or rather, the innings and outs—of the game. "See, now this guy, he's what we call a 'forced out.' The guy who was just at bat—"

"That's Bradley?" Bella clarifies.

"Yes, Bradley," Charlie says. He pauses to grin at her ability to pick up the game quickly. "So Bradley is already on first base, but the guy who was on second base, Hernandez, didn't think he'd make it to third, so he stayed put. Which means the guy in the middle, Pauley, is forced out."

"Because he has no choice, he has no way to get on a base."

"Yes, exactly."

"But that's so unfair! He goes out because someone else made the decision not to take a chance. It's not his fault at all! He had no choice!" Bella argues.

Charlie smiles sadly. "That's baseball." Charlie thinks sadly, _That's life_.

The evening passes quickly, a sign of how easy father and daughter find spending time together. Before they know it, Bella is taking leftovers and excusing herself to go check on Edward.

"You know… Edward, he's not a bad guy—a little overdressed, but he really cares for you, which is all you can want in someone," Charlie says.

Bella wonders if there is anyone in town who doesn't think she and Edward are together. "Oh, Edward and I are not…we're not dating. We're just colleagues and friends."

"Oh, well, I apologize. But I guess what I said still stands. He seems like a good guy."

"He really is. I'm beginning to see that now," she says, talking about more than Edward. "Thank you, dinner was great."

"You're welcome back anytime. And bring Edward when he's feeling better—but he can't wear a suit to dinner," Charlie jokes.

"Oh, well then, good luck getting him to come at all," she retorts. They enjoy an amicable laugh before Bella heads home.

When she comes back to the motel, it is with a full stomach, a light heart and a buoyed mood, and the only person she wants to see is the one in the next room. She doesn't knock, and while she pretends it is because she is in much too good a mood for manners, it may really be because she's hoping to find Edward freshly showered and in some state of undress.

He is the former, but not the latter, but even that can't bring her down. Edward looks adorable and boyish, t-shirt dark around the neck from where his wet hair has dampened it.

"Hey."

"Hey!"

"I take it dinner went well," Edward surmises from her smile.

He doesn't expect the grin he gets back, but is happy to see it nonetheless. "It did. How are you feeling?"

"Much better. My fever broke in the shower—"

"I told you."

"You told me." He beams back. Her mood is more infectious than the mood of his infection. "I don't feel sick anymore, just really tired. I think I'm just going to go to bed."

"Oh." Her tone plummets. "Okay."

"I mean… I'm not really sleepy, though," he hastens to add.

"Can I just hang out here for a bit?" she asks. "I don't want to be alo—I'm just in the mood to hang out."

"Sure." He shuffles around the things on the top of the dresser, searching for something as Bella sits down on his bed gingerly. She watches him for a few moments before scooting up and settling her back against the headboard.

"I have a hair dryer if you need it," she offers.

"Huh? No, I was just looking for—never mind, I found it," he says, triumphantly, holding up a tube of something. "I'm not drying my hair, but thanks."

"You have to dry your hair! You're going to catch a cold—or, uh, catch more of a cold, since you already have one," she amends.

"I'm pretty sure that's an old wives' tale."

"I don't care! You're already sick, why risk it?"

"I'm really not in the mood to blast my head with scorching amounts of heat right now."

"At least, towel-dry it."

"Bella, I can barely stand up." She doesn't miss that despite his visible fatigue, he still agreed to spend some time with her.

"Oh, you big baby. Give me your towel and come lie down. Put your head here, face down," she instructs, patting one of her thighs as she sits crossed-legged on the bed. Her eyes go wide when she realizes what she's implied, and wider when she sees Edward is too exhausted to make a lewd comment about it. Instead, he grabs a pillow and places it in her lap before flopping down, his head, per her instructions, on it.

Edward behaving with propriety? He _must _be wiped out. Of course, he'd have to be dead before not making a wisecrack of any sort, so it's inevitable that he says, "This isn't some covert way of trying to smother me to death, is it?"

She chuckles. "Don't be silly, I wouldn't do that." She pauses, his shoulders relax and he sinks more fully into the bed before she continues. "Not while you were sick. That's just mean."

She can hear his muffled laugh in the pillow. "Of course. Not while I'm sick." Bella picks up the towel and gently begins working it through his hair, rubbing slowly and soothingly. It's rather ineffective at drying his thick hair but effectual in calming the tenseness that radiates off him. She thinks he might be more stressed over being sick than from the sickness itself, and it makes her smile. Edward tries so hard to hide his weaknesses around her, and today, she's willing to prolong his delusion that he actually does.

The low rumble of contentment she feels, more than hears, through the pillow makes her smile even wider. This may be the closest Bella comes to taking care of anyone else—and he's okay with that. He's far too independent, too stubborn to be the kind of guy who wants to be coddled. He'd rather be challenged. Only now, sick, a little bit lovesick, and therefore vulnerable, does he feel the need to be comforted. She's doing that for him, and the only person she ever does it for is him. Edward revels in this knowledge, in being the exception to her many rules, in being the chink in her defensive, sharp-tongued armor, in being her Achilles' heel. In being hers.

When she pulls off the towel, he braces himself to be kicked unceremoniously from this position of bliss he's being treated too. Instead, she puts her fingers in his hair, and he can't control his hum of delight, not knowing that she enjoys combing and parting the soft, drying strands as much as he enjoys her fingers on his scalp.

But he's not Edward if he's not pushing his luck, so he flips over, mumbling and grumbling like a little boy that he can't breathe properly. This time, it is Bella who thinks that he's going to get up but instead he just lays down on his back, and looks up at her expectantly.

He is just as handsome upside down, and just as haughty. "Continue," he demands, reaching up and blindly groping for her hands until he finds them and places them back on his head. She tugs one of his ears playfully, eliciting a closed-eyed smile from him, before doing exactly as he demanded.

When he speaks, it is slurred with relaxation, sloppy with a sleepy euphoria. "I always loved when you did this."

Bella's gaze roams over his face, watching his closed eyes—long lashes dark against his face, smile small but so sweet. His nose is slightly red from the cold he's caught, and his forehead is still damp and a little clammy from the heat of his shower, and she's making an utter mess of his hair, but she doesn't think he's ever looked lovelier.

And then he manages to when he opens his glassy green eyes and stares up at her. He places his hand on her wrist and traces it up her arm, then shoulder, finally letting it rest on the side of her neck.

"I should probably let you sleep—your fever's broken so you'll be fine, but you're so tired," she babbles, her words rushing out, but it doesn't stop her from placing her hand on his, her other hand tracing a finger gently over the tired bags under his eyes. He says nothing just puts pressure on her neck, making her bend so she is closer. So her face is closer. So her lips are closer.

Her hair falls around them like a curtain and they are in their own world, nothing but the warmth of his hand on her neck, the coolness of her breath falling over him, the crackling combination of attraction and affection in the air.

"Bella," he says, so softly it is barely a breath. "I want to kiss you."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes." She leans down further. "But I think _I'm_ the one kissing _you_."

His chuckle is cut off midway when she places her lips on his, her nose brushing his chin in this upside down, over easy position that is so strange, so sweet—so them. She pulls away, less than a millimeter to smile, just for a second before moving down again, pressing their lips together more firmly as he strokes the length of her neck with his thumb. The kiss is caressing, careful, caring, just his bottom lip on her top one, his top lip on her bottom one, and nothing but bliss in between.

* * *

funny thing: that 24 hour flu+fever that Edward caught this chapter? I totally wrote it... and then caught it too. except it's lasted for five days. blech.

but wow. wow. holy... wow. you guys were wonderful. thanks so much for reading. I love reading your reviews. I hoped you enjoyed the silly little outtake. (if you reviewed and didn't get it, do let me know.) if you're interested, reviews this time get the first time Bella and Edward meet :)

See you next year, guys! Stay awesome.


	9. Crazy Little Thing Called Love

**Moondreamer** and **amerymarie** are fantastic betas and so, so good to me. **daisy**, imyilysfmih.

**

* * *

Chapter Nine.  
Crazy Little Thing Called Love**  
with emphasis on the 'crazy'.

You know, maybe teenagers have it right.

Sometimes, in the business of being grown up, in the utter preoccupation with sex and all its implications and complications, adults tend to forget how much fun just making out is. The beauty lies in the lack of destination—it's not about getting somewhere and going there faster and faster until your movements are so frantic you can barely enjoy the pleasure they bring you. No, making out is _all_ about slow, sumptuous savoring, about tongues caressing and lips nibbling. It's about kissing for so long that you forget what your lips felt like before someone else's were on them. It's about alighting a burn so slowly you barely realize you're on fire.

Bella and Edward are rediscovering that lost art right now with a great deal of enthusiasm and, just as adolescents would, a little awkward fumbling as they adjust from their vertically complicated position to a more horizontally compliant one. Perhaps it's especially bungling because they don't stop kissing as they maneuver, but somehow, they find themselves lying down on their sides, face to face. Rather literally.

The kiss is lazy then frenzied, before easing into a delicious calm that gets them all worked up again, the rhythmic movements of his mouth spurred on by the breathy little noises she makes. It's one kiss and a hundred all at once; if something can be forceful in its softness, then it is this kiss. When Bella pulls away just a fraction, the space between them, filled with their heavy breaths and light, happy smiles, is as sweet, as filled with longing and wanting and having as their kisses were.

Outside of their jobs, there are two things Bella and Edward are good at: sex and snark. In their shared past, these have combined deliciously but, perhaps in an effort to avoid the obstacles that tripped them before, this time they're taking a different route. Tonight, it seems that the course of action will be discourse, as opposed to intercourse.

"We probably should stop," Edward murmurs, pulling away as much as he can bear, which isn't far at all. "We should talk or something."

"Yeah, we should stop," Bella says breathlessly, as she grasps his chin between her thumb and forefinger, pulling his face to hers.

"Don't kiss me."

She doesn't. So he kisses her instead.

"Stop kissing me," she orders, mid- kiss.

"Don't kiss me back," he retorts, rather unintelligibly as his lips aren't particularly focused on enunciating.

"Stop kissing me," Bella repeats.

"Don't kiss me back," Edward repeats right back to her. All the while, they're still completely wrapped up in each other, his arm tight around her waist, his other hand gently brushing away strands of her hair with his thumb. Her leg is slung over his thigh, her toes flexing and tickling his calf and even as they weakly order one another 'stop' and 'don't', their words mingle and muddle, emerging as 'don't stop'.

And they don't, until poor Edward, tired and still recovering, can't stifle the yawn that breaks their mouths apart. Bella giggles and he narrows his eyes playfully. "Don't laugh."

"Don't yawn." He closes his eyes and plants a kiss where her ear meets her cheek. "Don't be tired," she says, turning her face so his lips are on hers once more. And because Edward speaks Spanish, Troll _and _Bella, he knows what she's really saying is 'don't stop kissing me'.

He tries valiantly not to—after all, it's rather in his interest to keep doing so. But after he yawns once, twice, thrice, it is Bella who pulls away. "You _are_ tired," she tells him. She giggles again—wondering when the hell she became a giggler—and pokes him in the shoulder. He flops onto his back, sighing loudly.

"I am," he says, staring up at the ceiling as he swallows, his Adam's Apple bobbing deliciously. Before she can even comprehend her actions, Bella is kissing it, feeling it tremble then vibrate as Edward lets out a low, lovely groan. "Stay here for a little while longer?"

She pulls away, surprised but understanding why he doesn't ask her to spend the night in his bed. They've tried that before, back on the first case they ever worked on together, when they could still feign platonic intentions. It had started with his suggestion that they sleep in his bed together. And even though they'd both agreed they'd 'just sleep', within two and a half snuggles, it had turned into 'just sex', as these things—namely things between two people who are undeniably attracted to each other and inane enough to try refuting it—are wont to.

She nods and he tightens his arm, bringing her flush against the side of his body, using the hand he has slid into her hair to guide her face back to the front of his neck. "I meant _right_ here," he jokes, laughing. She pushes away, playfully hitting him.

"I should go," Bella says, reluctantly rising off the bed. Edward nods but holds on to her hand.

"Good night kiss?" he requests.

She laughs and says, "And what have we been doing for the last fifteen minutes?" But she obliges him with a soft kiss, then watches from the doorway as he settles into the bed. He's asleep within a few moments, and though, with the way the blood is rushing through her, she doesn't expect to be, she is, too.

~O~

When they meet in the morning, ready for the day ahead of them, the sun is actually shining for once, and the freedom they felt under the dark cloak of night, the freedom that allowed them to act on their feelings, has abated. Those feelings, however, still remain and, even if neither Edward nor Bella feels brave enough to express them out loud, the rather beatific expressions on their faces say enough.

"Hi."

"Good morning."

"Good morning."

"Hi."

"Yeah..."

"So..."

Thankfully, before they wind up spending the entire day like that, Edward suggests "Breakfast?" like it's a brand new concept, and Bella says "Sounds great!" like it isn't what they've done every single morning since they arrived. Settling in at the diner, they are finally able to wipe the dopey grins off their faces.

"How are you after last night?" Bella asks, timidly testing out the first words of actual substance spoken between them.

Edward looks at her sharply and she notices a faint blush spread over the very top of his cheeks. He takes a deep breath, his eyes darting between his hands, folded and resting on the table, and Bella. "It was good, right?" He begins rambling before she can respond. "Of course, it was good. You're always good. I mean, you're a good kisser. Not that you're not good at other stuff, too, you know, because you are. Very good. Very, very good. I mean, you have some serious skills. You're pretty much a pro. Like you could make a caree—uhh, that's not what I meant, that—I didn't think that one out, I didn't mean…" Upon raising his eyes to hers, finally, and seeing her expression, he trails off. "You weren't even talking about us kissing, were you?" he asks, shaking his head.

Bella shakes hers in perfect tandem as she fights a smile. His nervousness endears him to her almost as much as his kisses do. "Did you just imply that I could be a hooker?"

He's bright as a tomato and she can't help finding victory in it since she's usually the one painted in red, hot flushes of embarrassment. Edward attempts to bury his face in the thin fabric of his tie, muttering, "What is wrong with me?" But he's grinning as he says it, and really, when he's smiling like that, wide and unguarded, she can't think of a single thing that is wrong with him. "You meant my fever."

"Yes, I did. But the unexpected evaluation of my _skills_ was kind of amusing."

"Shut up."

"You call me a hooker and _I'm_ the one that needs to shut up?" she teases.

Edward groans. "Can we change the subject?"

Taking pity on him, she does. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling fine. Better than ever. Top of the world."

"I told you that shower would help. So your temperature is back to normal? No shivering? No dizzi—" She stops abruptly, seeing the smirk on his face. "You _didn't_ mean the fever."

"No, I didn't." He reaches over and grasps one of her hands, and she can practically feel the exquisite flip of her heart.

Edward wants to finally voice all the thoughts and feelings that have been racing through his head and heart in the past few days. Smiles and gestures, kisses and caresses, those say enough for a while, but then it is time for actual words. That is where he and Bella failed so spectacularly last time, assuming their physical and sexual connection, and obvious—though unstated—affection for each other would carry them through anything. It didn't, and he's not keen on making that same mistake this time around. So he summons his courage, hoping that it is early enough and yet, at the same time, not too early to have this conversation. He knows there's no such thing as a perfect moment but this may be as close to it as he gets.

That is, until James, who is either stupid or feigning obliviousness to the intimate aura surrounding the two, slides in next to Bella.

"Good morning, Bella," he says, simpering. His eyes slide over to Edward. "And good morning to you, Edward, though I don't believe we've actually met officially. But that's no matter, I've been told _all_ about you by our Bella here." He slides an arm around her.

It's hard to say whether Edward is the type to get jealous or not because, even if he were, he's smart enough not to demonstrate it around Bella—she'd never stand for it. So, it's more with disgusted amusement that he repeats, "_Our _Bella?"

"Oh, right, she isn't _our_ Bella—she corrected me on my misapprehension regarding you two." James is practically preening.

Edward merely looks at him like the grease from his hair has seeped into his brain, but Bella glares at him, pushing him away forcefully. "I'd appreciate you keeping your hands to yourself, thanks."

James laughs and mocks whispers to Edward. "I'll tell you, she's a tough cookie." Jealous or not, Edward doesn't particularly enjoy being told anything about Bella by another man—especially this man. Turning back to Bella, James says, "I can't stay—"

"Wasn't aware you were invited to," Bella informs him icily. He chortles again.

"Oh, Bella, you are funny. There's nothing more appealing than a lady with a strong personality. But the harder they fight, the harder they fall. That's what they say."

"What who says? The Kidnappers Commission of America?" Edward snaps.

"Now, now, Edward. No reason for jealousy. I believe everyone has their place, and it is next to the person they belong with. I'm just trying to make sure Bella finds that place," he says, getting out of the booth. "I'll see you soon, I'm sure."

Bella pushes aside her breakfast and makes a face as James exits. "I lost my appetite."

"What the hell was he talking about?"

"Oh. With, um, what happened last night, I forgot to tell you. He was being a complete creep yesterday, spouting out all this stuff about how no one should be alone and how he wanted me to find the person I should be with. It was strange."

"Strange as in the type of strange that might go to spreading a love spell around town?"

"Maybe… I'm not sure how he'd do it, though. We won't be able to figure out much more about the spell itself until the lab returns with our results—"

"Bella, there she is!" She looks out the window to where Edward is pointing and sees Leah Clearwater. Tossing a few bills onto the table, she follows Edward, who has already rushed out.

"Excuse me? You're Leah Clearwater, right?" he says, advancing toward the woman in question. The minute she sees him, her eyes widen and she's off like a shot. Edward actually has to run to keep her in his sights. When she disappears behind the corner of a building, he gives up the chase.

Bella catches up a few moments later. "What happened?"

"I called her name and the minute she saw me, she just took off," he says, resting his hands on his thighs as his breathing returns to normal.

"You think she knows why we wanted to talk to her?" Bella asks.

"No way. The only person who knows why we're actually here is Charlie."

"But then why would she run?"

"I don't know, but we need to find out more about her. Let's go back to the room and check the database."

They do so, briefly stopping in at the police station. Charlie has a little information about Leah Clearwater—she's moved here from New York, but he's almost sure it was after the first incidents of couples getting together occurred. However, it was still a few weeks before any of the really crazy occurrences— like Rosalie or Tyler—happened.

"Okay," Bella says, consulting the chart they've drawn up once they're back in her room at Forks Motel. "So my dad says that people first started getting together around here." She points to a demarcation on the timeline. "He says it was noticeable that four or five couples got together within a very short period of time, but without any of the fuss. That's when Leah and her mother moved here. Tanya had already lived in Forks for about a month, Riley for about three weeks. Then, here—" she points a few inches to the right. "—is when the first crazy incident happened. Some guy named Garrett mowed the Forks High School football field to spell out the name of the girl he liked." She pauses. "Kind of impressive. That's a lot of elbow grease."

"What was her name?" Edward asks.

"Kate."

"Oh, well, that's not _that_ tough." He shrugs. "I mean, it's not like her name was really long like Bernadette or Wilhemina or something. Or she could have been one of those two-name girls like Alexandra Tallulah. _That_ would be impressive."

Bella rolls her eyes. Edward may not demonstrate his jealousy, but he's often competitive to the point of annoyance. "Anyway, by the time the crazy occurrences started happening, all four of the new residents were living here. If we assume that the couples getting together was part of the spell as well, then that makes Riley and Tanya suspects but not Leah and her mother. On top of that, we have James, Esme and Carlisle who already were in town."

"I don't think we can rule anyone out, but we don't have motive," Edward says. She nods.

"We don't, and chances are, we're not going to be able to find out more without raising suspicions as to why we're asking so many questions." She sighs. "We really need headquarters to get back to us with the results of the water."

"And we need to talk to Marcus to see whether Carlisle is registered. Why haven't they—" But the beginning of Edward's tirade is cut off by the beeping of his phone. He flips it open and reads the message and then holds it up to Bella. "Speak of the devil… we will be contacted over a secure video conference line tonight for a briefing."

"Does it say with who?" Bella asks.

"Nope."

"All right. I guess we'll find out soon enough," Bella says. She consults the file in her hands. "Riley Chekhov."

"What about him?"

"We haven't even seen him since we've been here. Rather strange considering how small the town is, don't you think?"

"He works at the florist with Tanya, correct? What say we go pay them a visit in about half an hour?"

"Why half an hour?" she asks, even as she gets her answer in the way Edward tugs her over to where he's seated on the bed. He pulls her face down to his, kissing her so thoroughly that she melts onto, rather than sits on his lap.

"We can make that an hour if you want," he amends from somewhere in the vicinity of the sensitive space behind her ear. And she does want to make it an hour, or two, or a day, or five, where she and Edward just hole themselves in this room, on this bed, and entice and excite and explore each other.

It is this thought, and the fact that she's barely noticed that she's straddling him, and that their hips have begun taking on the same frantic rhythm their lips have and that it all feels so damn good that makes her realize this is precisely what they shouldn't be doing. Not right now, at least.

She pulls away but not too far, resting her temple on the side of his head, thinking that the sound of his pants in her ear is far, far too sexy. "Edward," she says, as breathless as he is. "We really shouldn't. Not now, we're working."

"I know." He takes a deep breath, kissing her shoulder. "We need to get back to work." Of course, it's only fair that Edward be given the same amount of affection, so Bella kisses his ear.

Oh, the sacrifices they make for equality.

That's all it takes to set them off again, until this time Edward pulls away and says, "We have to stop or we're never getting any work done."

"Something is wrong when you're the voice of reason," Bella replies.

"No, it's just I know that I shouldn't start things when I can't finish."

"You mean you shouldn't start things _that_ you can't finish."

"No, I meant start things _when_ I can't finish." He smiles wickedly as Bella rolls her eyes. "Now, since it appears you're not really ready to get off me and you're being too professional to get me o—"

"Edward," she warns.

"Alright, alright." He places both his hands on her butt and lifts her up with him as he stands, placing a quick kiss on her nose before turning and tossing her onto the bed like she weighs nothing. She's actually glad it's a giggly shriek that escapes her and not a moan or something equally as wanton that gives away how turned on she is by the action.

"Half an hour," he requests. "Give me half an hour."

She laughs and asks again, "Why half an hour?" The mumbled, equivocating answer Edward gives as he shuffles to his room sounds something like he wants to take a cold shower.

~-O-~

But when they go into town a little while later, there is no sign of Riley or Tanya and the florist shop is closed, its windows dark.

"I guess we'll have to come back tomorrow," Edward says.

"Will they even be here tomorrow?" Bella asks. "It's not like it's a public holiday or a Sunday that the shop would be closed."

"I'll ask the shop next door to see if they know anything," Edward says, nodding to the small bookstore that neighbors the florists.

"You're Bella Swan, right?" a cold voice to the right of her asks a few moments after Edward departs. The owner of the chilly voice is the opposite, with her loud, almost neon yellow, low-cut top that clashes terribly with her fiery red hair.

"Yes, I am," Bella says. By now, she's gotten used to the townsfolk being fascinated with her, the long-lost child of their beloved police chief. She understands that it is not nosiness, but a feeling of kinship, that she is one of their own that propels their actions. But from the venomous expression on this woman's face, she doesn't share that sentiment.

"You are…"

"Victoria Herring… James' wife." Bella resists the urge to make a face. James' wife is just as pleasant as he is, which is to say, not at all. "Yeah, now you get it."

_Get what? _Bella wonders.

"Look, I don't know what you've heard, but I've seen you hanging around town. I'm on to you. I see what you're doing. You're a pretty little thing, running around with one man while telling others he's not your boyfriend."

"Excuse me?"

Victoria steps closer to her, straightening to her rather impressive full height. "Just remember that everyone belongs with someone else. You don't mess with that."

Suddenly, it clicks—this is the same nonsense James was spouting. "I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure I know what you're talking about." To anyone else, Bella would sound polite, but she knows Victoria is close enough to feel the edge in her words.

"Sure you don't. Just remember, swans may be pretty birds with their white feathers and their long, graceful necks, but that just makes it easier to cut their throats." With that she spins on her heel, her voluminous hair splaying around her, a few strands whipping her in the face with the force of her turn. It's meant to be a dramatic exit after an ominous threat—except that to Bella, it's all rather ridiculous. Even if she understood what had just happened, she wouldn't be scared.

Edward strolls up to Bella as she still stares at the space Victoria was just standing in. "Well, the owner of the bookstore doesn't know where they've gone, so we'll just have to take our chances and come back tomorrow." As he nears her, he sees the look of confusion and disbelief that colors her pretty, soft features. "What's wrong?"

"I think I just got threatened."

"By whom?"

Bella points at Victoria, whose bright red hair can still be seen as she makes her way down the street. "Victoria—James Herring's wife. I think she might actually be creepier than he is."

"Didn't know that was possible."

"Before she threatened me, she spouted off that same crap about each person having someone they belong with."

"How did she threaten you?" he asks, but before Bella can answer, someone clears their throat behind them.

"Excuse me, Bella?"

After the encounter with Victoria, you can't really blame Bella for the "now what?" she mutters under her breath. But when she turns around, she sees delicate, quiet beauty with a matching demeanor. "I don't think we've been introduced but everyone knows who you are. I'm Angela Weber."

"Nice to meet you, Angela. This is my colleague, Edward Masen."

Edward and Angela shake hands as he says, "Congratulations, by the way. Deputy Hale told us you're getting married very soon."

"Next week, in fact," she replies. "Actually, that was what I wanted to talk to you about. Mike—my fiancé—and I are forgoing bachelor and bachelorette parties in favor of a bit of a town celebration. On Saturday night, down on the school's field, we'll be having a little barbeque dinner, a sort of pre-wedding reception. The whole town is invited, but I figured you may not have heard about it, so I wanted to make sure that you two came."

"Sure," Bella says. She looks at Edward and he nods his agreement.

"Is there a dress code?" Edward asks. Bella fights the urge to roll her eyes. Of course, Edward would ask about a dress code.

Angela's eyes politely appraise his formal attire. "No… it's casual. Whatever you see fit. But it is themed."

"Themed?" Bella repeats. Suddenly, she is regretting agreeing to go.

"Yes. Love-themed."

"Umm, what exactly does that mean?" Edward asks.

How philosophical of you, Edward, to ask what love means.

If it's regarding the party, Angela knows the answer. Smiling, she answers, "Whatever you want it to. You'll see when you get there." With that, she bids them goodbye, citing last minute wedding preparations to attend to.

"We'll see when we get there," Edward echoes. "That's not cryptic. Love-themed."

"Rather apropos, even if she doesn't know it."

"Well, that could be fun. Maybe. Probably not." Edward sighs and glances at his watch. "We have our debrief in a little while. What should we do till then?"

~-O-~

"Bella," Edward groans as she slides her tongue down the tendon that stretches from his neck to his collarbone. "You're going to have to stop that."

"Why?" she asks, doing the opposite.

"Because," he says, but doesn't finish his sentence before pulling her lips back to his. This goes on for a few more minutes. His back is against the headboard of his bed and, as much as she may have been trying to keep her cool, this is what Bella has wanted to do since they stopped earlier in the afternoon. "You're driving me crazy."

"You mean you aren't already?"

"Funny. No, I mean, one second all I want to do is…" He struggles to find a politer way to say 'screw your brains out'.

"All you want to do is this?" Bella suggests, gesturing to their bodies pressed together where she kneels in the space between his spread, outstretched legs.

He looks at her, eyebrow raised. "A lot more than this." At that she leans forward to kiss him once more, but he puts his hand on her shoulder and gently pushes back, keeping her at arm's length, literally. "You know, you make it really difficult to think." He scrunches his eyes shut as if attempting to do that, slipping his hand down her arm so that he can twine their fingers. "What I'm trying to say, without sounding like a clingy idiot is… I think we need to talk about this. About us. About where this is going and what it all means."

The look they exchange says what you already know. He wound up sounding like a clingy idiot anyway.

He scrubs his free hand over his face, his expression softening as he stares at their entwined fingers, and he continues. "One moment, I have every intention of holding a mature conversation with you, and then you look at me like…" his eyes flick from their joined hands up to her, as he places his hand on the side of her face, running his thumb gently over her inviting bottom lip, "like that. You look at me like that, and how can anyone expect me to do anything but this?" He pulls her face to his and kisses her deeply, hoping that maybe it can say all the things neither of them are.

Before they can delve too deep into anything, the trilling beep of the computer reminds them that it is time for their scheduled debriefing. As Bella pulls the hem of her shirt from where it has ridden up, Edward lightly combs his fingers through her hair in an attempt to calm its disarray. They both take a few extra seconds to wipe the smiles off their faces.

"Marcus!" Edward cheerily greets the vampire whose long, gaunt face fills the computer screen.

"Hello Edward, Bella. As you've probably figured out, I will be your handler on this case while Aro's out of the office," he informs them. "I've been named Director ad Interim in his absence."

"Has he left his post?" Bella asks, incredulously.

"No, no, but I will take up the administrative duties he can't fulfill while he's out in the field."

"Aro is out in the field? Are all the agents okay?" Bella asks, wary from experience.

Marcus is uncharacteristically deflective. "Yes, yes, nothing like that, Bella. No need to worry. Aro had a… vested interest in one of the cases, so much so, he felt the need to personally attend to it. He felt his presence was required."

Marcus misses nothing, including the way Bella tugs on Edward's shirtsleeve in distracted excitement. "I bet it's that one. The one with the god—with Q—who was yelling at him while we were waiting outside his office."

"Oh, yeah! I completely forgot about that." Edward turns to the screen. "Is that it, Marcus? Is that the case he's gone to take care of?"

The look Marcus fixes on Edward is akin to one a kindergarten teacher might fix on a pupil trying to eat paste—thoroughly unamused. "Edward, I know you're smart enough not to actually expect me to tell you."

"No, I didn't think you would. But I'm going to take your silence as an affirmation." Even with the look his boss is giving him, Edward laughs, knowing that Marcus is actually quite fond of him.

The sight of the vampire's yellow eyes rolling is actually quite frightening. "You two gossip more than a pair of old hags. If you're done, I'd quite like to get to the case at hand?"

"Of course," Bella says, elbowing Edward who is still grinning. "We wanted to ask you about something. There's a vampire here—his name is Carlisle Cullen. Is he registered, and if so, what can you tell us about him?"

Marcus doesn't have to check the database, a benefit of his infallible memory. He tells them that not only is Carlisle Cullen registered, but that he's rather well-respected in the vampire community, seeing as he has chosen to be a doctor _and_ is committed to not drinking human blood. He's been a vampire for about twenty-five years, and was changed somewhere in his twenties and moved to Forks about ten years ago.

"That's right around the time Esme opened the diner," Bella recalls.

"Still doesn't tell us how or why they might be setting this spell."

"Speaking of this spell, we have the results from those water samples you sent…" Marcus segues. "It's very complicated and it looks like there may be several components to it—that's why it took the lab so long. This is some incredibly advanced potion making, so you're looking for someone who is not only knowledgeable but well-practiced in Magic. It is impossible that anyone less than an expert could have concocted something like this. The lab is still deconstructing the intricacies of the potion, so keep that in mind, but what they've found is a base potion. What is most relevant for you two is that the most basic part of the spell is in the water."

"What?" Their incredulity is in unison.

"Yes. The potion has compounded with the hydro—well, I won't waste your time with the science, since you'll read the details in the written lab report we've sent you—but, to sum up the results, anyone who has ingested any amount of the Forks' water supply has had exposure to the spell."

"But…" Edward says. "That means the whole town has been exposed."

Including themselves. Oh, goody.

Their eyes slowly drag away from the screen to one another, and it's rather clear they're recalling the past day of kisses and, beyond that, the past week of civility, wondering whether it's all been because of something beyond themselves.

"That's not all," Marcus says, watching stony-faced as they slowly inch away from each other. The only thing that betrays his amusement is the slight twitch of his left eyebrow.

"What? What else could there be?" Bella snaps.

Marcus takes an unnecessary breath before announcing, "We can't actually be sure of who is under the spell and who isn't."

This is going to be fun.

* * *

A lot of you have been making some _really_ good guesses as to what is going on. Will I tell you when you're right? Probably not ;)

Your reviews make me happy and smile and write faster. As a thank you, I'll reply back with a teaser of the next chapter-in honest-to-goodness EPOV. (The chapter itself will be third person POV, as always.) For the past couple chaps, I've been updating every two weeks, so I'm going to try and keep that up.

Are you reading Clockwork yet? I love that story. This story loves that story, even.

Be awesomer, guys. Betcha can't.


	10. Everything I Do

** Moondreams333** & **amerymarie** are a little beyond fantastic. Okay, a lot. I lost **daisy3853** to technology, but I'll get her back next time.

And ff's word count is _still_ lying. I know it shouldn't bother me. But. It. Does.

* * *

**Chapter Ten. **  
**Everything I Do**  
might be because of this spell. Or it might not be. Total mindfuck.

For Bella and Edward's first assignment in the field, shortly after they had completed their training, they were assigned a particularly difficult task. A group of Sirens had emigrated from Europe and taken residence in Niagara Falls, perhaps searching for a new audience for their song.

It was a tricky case, even if it hadn't been their first. To complicate matters, they were warned that the Sirens' song would affect Edward, as it did all men, and that the only antidote caused temporary blindness.

Bella had held Edward's hand the whole time they'd walked through the dank Niagara landscape, guiding him through his blindness, and pointing out things in his path that could have tripped him. She didn't release his hand as they found, and then argued fiercely with the three sisters, declaring them as alien interterrestrials, who had breached the immigration agreements of both Greece and the US. She gently turned his shoulders to face the right direction when he misjudged their placement and began warning a tree that if the Sirens didn't go back to their home country, Greece would not expedite them.

And for the hours after they were finished, while the effects were wearing off and his sight was returning in fits and starts, hands still clasped, she patiently narrated what was happening on the TV station they were watching—which was quite an involving task, since the only thing on was a silent Charlie Chaplin film.

Liking the weight and warmth of her hand in his, liking the authority and cadence of her voice, liking everything about her as you tend to when in the first flush of adoration, Edward may have stretched the truth a bit, claiming the effects of the blindness long after they had faded away.

Even after he confessed that he was completely recovered, she still hadn't pulled away—not her hand as he continued to hold it, not her lips when he leaned into kiss her, and not her body when he pulled her to him later that night.

That's a bit of a digression. The point is when faced with deadly Sirens on their first ever field assignment, Edward and Bella displayed grace under pressure, courage under fire and the ability to stay rational while doing their jobs. Most importantly, they didn't, not for one second, allow anything to weaken their greatest advantage—their quickly cemented alliance.

However, now, when faced with a love spell, they possess all the grace of two elephants playing leapfrog, and the courage of a turtle cowering within its shell. As for the ability to stay rational?

See for yourself.

Directly following Marcus' revelation, there's a definite "the killer is in the house!" moment as Edward and Bella stare at each other, horrified, and then dramatically leap apart.

Marcus is decidedly less than amused with the two agents in front of him. Thanks to their Olympics-worthy long jump away from each other, he can't see them, but he can only assume how ridiculous they're being. Still, he can't deny that he has a soft spot for them. They're children—well, he's 642, so everyone is a child to him—so confused in what they want, yet so determined to get it. They both have good hearts, though, and after centuries of seeing the worst of humanity, Marcus can appreciate how innocent and genuinely benevolent Edward and Bella's little drama is.

Doesn't make it any easier to stand though.

"Excuse me," he says, attempting to regain their attention. When he gets no response, he decides its time for Vampire Voice. Icy, dripping with authority, it's similar to the tone used by a parent when admonishing a child… if that parent were once a blood-drinking warlord. He saves it for rare occasions, but it has never once failed to command the attention of whomever it's unleashed upon. "Agents Swan and Masen."

Both snap to attention and sit down, once again within his view.

"The spell must have more parts to it, other than just what is in the water," Marcus continues in his liquid smooth tones. "This potion is what we classify as a 'primer', meaning those who ingest it are now susceptible to the magic. But it's missing a very important component that we usually see in spells, a catalyst."

"What does that mean?" Edward asks.

"It means there's another element to the spell, that when combined with potion in the water, triggers the full effect of the love spell."

"Does that mean that you're only under the spell if you're exposed to both elements?"

"No, we can't say that for certain yet. The potion in the water is so powerful that it may serve as more than just a primer, but the lab is still trying to test for that," Marcus informs them.

"So, essentially," Bella says, frowning as she works it out, "while everyone in Forks is now capable of falling under the spell, we can't actually figure out who is under it until we know what the second part of the spell is and who has been exposed to it."

"I'm sending the lab results right now, and I'll send any updates as they come in. Keep being vigilant with your daily reports—Aro specifically mentioned wanting to see them when he returns," Marcus replies, clearly ready to sign off.

"And that'd be… when, exactly?" Edward fishes.

"Agent Masen, I'm not quite sure there's any reason you need that particular information."

"Sure there is."

"And what would that reason be?"

"To satisfy my curiosity," Edward quips.

Marcus rolls his eyes again. "Good night, Bella, Edward."

Any of the ease that might have been there when Edward was joking with Marcus, leaves the room when his image does, replaced by a blank screen. There's just the two of them now—oh and that giant pink elephant, too.

Even as Bella and Edward avoid looking at each other, their eyes darting around the room, they are reminded of the thing they don't want to think of, let alone talk about. However, there are telltale signs: the way Bella is still a little flushed; how Edward's hair is even more untidy than usual; the haphazard way the sheets on the bed are crumpled—if there's one thing more awkward than a morning after you've had sex, it's the moments after you almost did, but didn't.

This is that moment, the awkwardness borne of the doubts the love spell has just raised, highlighted by their confusing history and amplified by their growing feelings.

"So…"

"Yeah…"

"This love spell."

"Yeah."

"Can't tell who is under it."

"That's what Marcus said."

"Means that we can't really tell who _isn't_ under it, either."

"Yes, logic would indicate that."

"So we—we can't…"

"No, I guess we can't. Not anymore."

"Because we could be under it."

"And not know we are."

"So what do we do?"

"Solve this case."

"Right."

"Right."

"How exactly do we do that?"

"I don't know."

Silence descends over the two of them as they contemplate both what they can do and perhaps more importantly, what they _can't_ do anymore.

Bella speaks again a few moments later. "We just have to be… umm..." She searches for the word, but can't seem to find it.

"Pragmatic?" Edward suggests.

"Yes. Pragmatic. We just have to watch ourselves. Monitor our behavior and thoughts, and try to be more self aware than usual."

That shouldn't be too hard since they're usually not self aware _at_ _all_, at least, when it comes to each other.

Proving that point, Edward nods in agreement. "Yes. Like we were taught in that training for mind-control resistance."

"Exactly. And we'll have to watch each other, make sure we're not getting weird," Bella suggests.

"Right. And be open about it—I'll tell you if you're acting strange, and you tell me if I am."

She shakes her head and says firmly, "If you were, I would tell you."

"Thanks. I'll—" He cuts off with a frown. "Wait. Is you telling me you'd tell me your way of telling me?"

"What?"

"Are you telling me that you're telling me?"

"_What?_"

"You said you'd tell me if I was acting strange. So by telling me you'd tell me if I was acting strange, are you, in fact, telling me I'm acting strange?" Edward asks, face screwing up as he tries to follow his own convoluted sentence.

Bella shoots a strange look. "Well... now you are."

"No, I'm not."

"If you're just going to argue with my answer, what's the point of asking me?"

"Asking if you're saying that I'm acting strange is not acting strange!" Edward replies, hotly, the frustration and futility of their situation emerging in his words. "That's just good sense."

"Yeah, but if you're not going to listen to me, then why ask me? Isn't the whole point that, in this situation, I'd be a better judge if you were acting under the spell?" Bella is so worked up in her words that as she says this, a tiny glob of saliva lands on Edward's cheek. He wipes it away with less disgust than you would expect, but then again, he's not exactly a stranger to her saliva.

"Jesus, Bella, you're spitting on me? Y—"

"If you crack a 'say it don't spray it' joke right now, so help me—"

"Please. That's so overdone. I was going to say you shouldn't take the term 'lover's spat' so literally."

"Ugh, I hate that word, 'lover'." Interesting how she doesn't bother to refute whether they _are_ actually lovers or not.

"Funny how you seem to hate every word that I say. I'm beginning to think you'd hate anything that comes out of my mouth," Edward shoots back.

His mention of his mouth has drawn her attention to it, and she can't stop herself from recalling just what that mouth was doing to her hardly more than fifteen minutes ago. And when she stops running _her_ mouth, all he can notice is how her lips are still a little swollen, how she looks like she's been kissed well, and how all he wants to do is keep that look on her for a while longer.

Silence falls over them as quickly as their argument sparked up, and they simply stand there, contemplating each other—what had just been, what could have been and now what was.

As if they both sense that their minds are going somewhere their bodies are no longer allowed to, they do an abrupt about face away from each other—Edward to sit on his bed, Bella out the door—separating for the night without another word.

The next morning when they reconvene outside their rooms (the connecting door that has been swinging freely for the past few days, quietly shut and noticeably avoided), it's after a night spent thinking—prodding at 'what if's', poking at 'might be's', and generally working themselves into messes—rather than sleeping. When Bella did fall asleep, she dreamed that ten-foot tall, walking letters—'L', 'O', 'V' and 'E', to be specific—were chasing her, shouting "Spell me! Spell me!"

She's still trying to shake them off—er, her dream, she means, she's still trying to shake off _her dream_—when she and Edward meet in the morning.

"So, I was thinking, while I was in the shower—" Edward begins. With her fatigue, the filter she uses to restrict herself from thinking about Edward—the one she used for so many months and only dropped recently, the one she promised herself last night to resurrect—hasn't fallen into place, and she can't help but picture him in the shower.

It doesn't aid her focus.

"The spell has two parts." He's still speaking, but Bella is only listening with one ear, the rest of her attention still on the rather enjoyable visual in her head. He barely notices, so caught up in his ideas. This is Edward on a roll, talking fast while tossing his keys into the air and then catching them in curled fingers. "We know that everyone has been exposed to the first, but until we know what the second part is, we can't know who has been exposed to it. Only, what if we could?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if everyone is exposed to the base potion and they're still normal—"

"Then the people who are not normal must be the ones who have been exposed to the second part of the potion as well," Bella infers, eyes lighting up in realization. "Like Rosalie and Ben and Tyler."

"Exactly." He tosses the keys one last time but misses catching them. When he bends over to pick them up, Bella's mind—which had slowly begun whirring to life—goes blank, focusing only on the sight in front of her.

"That's a nice ass," she says, under her breath, barely even realizing she is speaking. When Edward looks at her inquiringly, she adds, "—Umption. That's a good assumption."

"You don't agree?" he asks. Either he didn't hear her slip of the tongue or he's too tired to comment on it. Either way, Bella blushes slightly, wrestling with her brain to focus on what they were just talking about, instead of what she was just thinking about.

It's rather silly. There's probably not been a day in Bella's life since she met Edward where she hasn't admired some part of him. But now, with the revelations of the previous night clouding her brain, she can't help wondering if it's the spell that's making her feel like this, her hormones, or some unconquerable combination of the two. Just goes to show that the power of suggestion—regardless of whether that suggestion is correct or not—is rather influential.

"No, no, I agree. It does seem like the second part of the potion is what makes people act crazy. But by last count, that was about ten different people—how could we narrow down what they've been exposed to that might contain the catalyst?"

Edward frowns. "I know. I mean, we can limit it a bit—the lab report did say that since the first part of the spell was spread through the consumption of water, the second part was most likely something that had to be ingested as well. But I'm not quite sure how to narrow it down further."

"I think our best bet is to continue investigating the source. If we can find who did this, then we can not only understand the spell, but put a stop to it," she reasons.

"Alright. Well, we should probably check in with your dad, and then I thought we'd go see Tanya," Edward suggests. Bella's eyebrows stretch to her hairline. "I meant—the florist. We still need to meet Riley."

There is the strange, foreign feeling welling up in Bella, and she recognizes it from the previous time they met Tanya. Some silly part of her brain is wondering whether Edward is under the love spell, with her. And if he isn't, whether he could be—with Tanya. She knows this is probably unlikely, but the heat of jealousy burns away at her rationality and she finds herself inexplicably, but genuinely worried. Not knowing what to do, she tries to quell her growing worry by making it a joke. "Oh, we can go visit your _girlfriend_."

Edward shoots her a strange look. "My girlfriend?"

"Tanya?"

He frowns. "I've met her once—_with _you."

"But you liiiiiike her," Bella trills, even as she wonders in her head what the hell she is talking about, and why the hell she's acting like this.

"No, I don't."

Bella forces a smile, which only makes the expression even more awkward. "Yes, you dooooo."

Edward looks at her curiously. "Remember when we said we'd tell each other if we thought the other was acting strange?"

"Yes."

"Do you not see where I'm going with this?"

Bella rolls her eyes. "I'm not acting strange." She is.

"You are."

"No, you're just saying that to get back at me for saying it last night." He's not.

"I'm not."

Angry at herself for acting so childish, she takes it out on Edward. "Yes, you are! You're just being silly and petty. Just admit you like her and are going to fall in love with her!" she bursts out.

Edward looks around him as if there may be someone else she's talking to, because none of her words are making any sense to him. "What?"

Bella scrubs a hand over her face and takes a deep breath, hoping to inhale some sanity. "I'm sorry… I didn't sleep much and I know I'm not making sense. Maybe…" It's his proximity, and the wondering he causes that is making her act like this, she realizes. Is this the effect of the spell? Or is she just thinking it is because... She stops herself before her brain can start turning in ten thousand more tangents, and says, "Maybe we should split up for the day? I'll check in with my dad—and we still have to interview Rose. I can do that. You can go see Tanya and Riley Chekhov."

Edward senses the sudden shift in her but doesn't say anything and nods in agreement. "But how are you going to question Rosalie without breaching confidentiality? Aro emphasized containment, even your dad advised against telling her what we're investigating since she is one of the victims."

Bella sighs. "I know. I guess I'll just have to think of some way."

"Alright, well, get in the car. I'll drive you over to the station—that should give you plenty of time to think. A whole thirty seconds," he jokes, hoping to bring some levity back. She gives him a shaky smile that says she appreciates his efforts.

He's mildly relieved to be spending some time away from her, hoping that it will calm her bizarre behavior and give him the opportunity to get his own thoughts in order. But the whole time they walk to the car, Edward trails behind Bella by a few feet, admiring her slim curves, as he so often does. After all, he is a man and she's got a rather nice assumption, too.

"I can get a ride back to the motel from my dad. I'll see you later?" Bella asks when Edward pulls up to the station.

"Sure. We can go over everything and write a joint report."

~—~

"Good morning," Rosalie says when Bella comes in the door. Charlie looks up with a large smile, and offers her the same greeting.

"Morning, Deputy Hale, morning D—," she begins then stops as she realizes she was about to refer to Charlie as Dad. The word feels foreign on her tongue, maybe more so because it feels _right_ to say it. But even if it feels right, she still can't, not yet, and instead just offers him an awkward smile in place of a title.

But it seems nothing can wipe the smile off his face this morning. "So, I heard something in town," he says, as they sit down on opposite sides of his desk.

Bella's face loses its color and she suddenly, irrationally, worries that her father somehow knows that she's been kissing a guy. No matter that she's no longer kissing that guy or that there's no conceivable way that Charlie could know this—having not been faced with this feeling since she moved out of her mother's house at eighteen, the paranoia hits her rather hard.

"What do you mean?" she asks, shakily.

"Well, this town talks a lot, so when I first heard, I thought it might just be a rumor, but then, I heard from more and more people, and thought that maybe you were just too… I don't know, nervous, to talk to me about it?" Charlie says. He's different, even from the man he was just two nights ago when they had dinner. He's a little looser, and he trips over his words in his hurry to get them out.

"Nervous about what?"

"About moving to Forks," he says. He takes a little breath as if to give him a little courage for his next words. "Now, I know there's a lot for you to think about with your job and all, but I wanted to say that I'd really like it if—I mean, I hope you'd consider—that'd it'd be really nice if you came to live with me. At the house. Just for a little while. That way, you could decide whether you wanted to buy a place here—"

"I'm not moving to Forks," Bella blurts, instantly regretting her frank words when the smile slips off of Charlie's face.

"Oh. You're not. Moving to Forks. Right. Sorry, I guess, I must have misunderstood—"

"No, it's my fault," she says, biting her lip, wishing she could have bitten her tongue instead, if only to find a nicer way to have let him down. "I did tell people that, but only because they were getting nosy and suspicious as to why I was spending so much time here. It seemed like a good explanation…"

"Of course, you're right. It is. I should have figured out that you were just creating an alibi." Not only is his smile gone, but he's refusing to meet her eyes, arbitrarily rearranging things on his desk.

"No, I should have told you..." she says, letting her sentence hang. They sit there in awkward silence for a few more minutes, Bella watching as her father shifts his stapler to four different places on his desk, before standing up.

"Well, I have to go have a chat with the Herrings about keeping the noise down. They seem to not understand the term 'domestic disturbance'," he says, abruptly. "Rose, I should be back in a half hour, if those idiots listen to me."

"So in an hour then, Chief?" Rose asks.

Charlie snorts. "I can only hope." He turns to Bella but still doesn't meet her eyes. "I'll see you when I get back. If you're still here. Not that I expect you to be. I… Bye, Bella." With that, he walks swiftly out of the station, leaving Bella to stew in disappointment at her behavior.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Rosalie pipes up. "It's an awkward situation. You're both doing the best you can."

"Am I?" Bella asks.

Rosalie gives her a small smile. "You should be. Relationships are hard. Anything but your best is doomed to fail."

Rosalie doesn't know it—or maybe, from the knowing look in her eyes, she does—but Bella is contemplating her relationship with both the men in her life. In past two days, they've swung from being the best they've been to the worst. She sighs and decides that, for now, the only thing she can do is her job.

"So listen… about that whole Emmett thing…" Bella begins, unable to find a better segue.

"Yeah, I knew it was a matter of time before you asked me about that," Rose says with a little laugh. "Charlie mentioned you guys wanted to talk to me but even if he hadn't, I have eyes. I've noticed what's been happening around town. And I've noticed that I was part of it. I know you can't confirm it, but I figured that was the real reason you and Edward were in town. You just don't seem like EPA agents to me."

Bella laughs. "We don't? That's not good."

"No, it's more like… maybe my own instincts as an officer are kicking in or something. I don't really think anyone else is town is thinking about it too much. They'd rather just know the gossip, about you and Charlie or you and Edward."

Bella rolls her eyes and walks over to Rose's desk and takes the seat in front of it. "So, can you remember anything out of the ordinary happening? Before you started acting like…"

"Like a lovesick idiot? A teenybopper fangirl? A stalker? Don't worry, anything you call me can't be worse than what I've called myself." She chuckles. "I honestly can't. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. I do remember feeling sort of strange for a little while though—but it was prolonged. It had been for the month before."

"What did it feel like?"

"Well, I was happy. Not euphoric or anything but just… content. Like… this is going to sound strange, but like I could stop worrying." She ends her sentence like it's a question, and frowns as she attempts to arrange her thoughts. "Not like I could stop worrying about everything, just… like I was going to be okay. No matter what, it was all going to be okay."

Bella finds herself envious of that feeling. Maybe she's not under the spell, because she definitely doesn't feel like that. But then again, this is just Rosalie's testimony—maybe the spell acts differently for each person who is under it. That's how love works, anyway.

"And then," Rosalie continues. "All I remember was that I was filled with this feeling, this urgency, that I _had_ to be with Emmett and it had to be now. I couldn't spend another minute away from him, another moment not being his, him not being mine, and I would do whatever it took to make that happen."

"Well, clearly, you were successful. Although, I'm still wondering what made him change his mind," Bella comments.

"I know! I remember even when he was repulsed by my actions, that feeling that I'd be okay, that it would all work out—it was still there. He shook me off, but somehow, the next morning, he found me. He was so sweet—he handed me a bunch of flowers, and told me that I wouldn't have to chase him anymore because he'd always be right there next to me."

"You don't know what changed his mind?"

Rosalie shrugs. "No idea. I didn't even bother to question it—it just felt _right_. Like that was what should have happened, so why would I, you know?"

"Why would you wonder about something you're sure about?"

"Exactly. I'm sorry, I'm not sure that's much help, but really, I can't think of anything strange—other than my own behavior—that occurred."

"And were you in contact with anyone suspicious? Maybe Leah Clearwater or Tanya Amadeus or Riley Chekhov—or the Herrings?"

Rose shudders. "Are you kidding? I keep away from the Herrings as much as possible. James is a creep and Victoria is a bitch. Other than in passing, I've never interacted with Leah Clearwater or Tanya Amadeus. And I've never even met Riley."

Bella sighs. "Alright."

"Bella? Remember when I told you that for a little while—when I was acting really crazy—all I could think was that I _had_ to be with Emmett, that I had to do anything it took to make us work?" Bella nods. "It worked."

And though she was under the love spell at the time, Bella finds herself understanding Rosalie's advice—that sometimes, you have to be a little crazy, throw caution to the wind, and do something you may not be sure about to make a relationship work.

She knows what she has to do. "Thanks, Rosalie."

"No problem. I'll keep an eye out on them-everyone you mentioned—and let you know if anything catches my attention."

Bella nods her thanks and hopes that Edward is having some luck with questioning Tanya and Riley.

—~—

He's not.

The florist is open, unlike the day before, but when he walks in, only Tanya is there, reading a slim paperback.

He cranes his neck to see the title. "_A Midsummer Night's Dream_? Shakespeare?"

Tanya looks up from the book and smiles. "Ay me! For aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth," she quotes, reading from the book.

"Interesting," Edward says. "One of my ex-girlfriends once compared me to Nick Bottom. I hadn't read it at the time, so I thought she was complimenting me on having a great butt. Turns out she was just calling me an ass."

She laughs. "What can I do for you today, Mr. Masen?"

"Please call me Edward, because I plan on calling you Tanya," he says, his charm out in full force. It's not that he wants Tanya, since his head and heart are still stuck on the brunette he just left, but there's something about her that's irresistible. Even though she's stunningly beautiful, it's not the type of attraction that occurs between a man and a woman, more like what exists when in the presence of someone incredibly charismatic. He gravitates toward her, as he suspects that most people do.

"Actually, I was hoping to meet your associate, Riley Chekhov?" he asks, noting how her mouth forms a little line upon mention of his name.

"Why is that? I can assure you, whatever floral needs you have, I can ably fulfill them," she says, a little too breezily. Being in the profession he is, Edward knows how to deflect conversation. More importantly, he knows how to recognize when someone else is doing it.

"Well, I just wanted a male perspective," Edward replies, just as smoothly. "That's the one thing you can't help me with. Plus, I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him yet—he may be the only one in town." He lightens the statement with a small laugh. "I'm pretty sure I've met everyone else."

"Oh, yes. Well, Riley tends to be a bit reclusive—I'm actually the only one he really talks to," she says. "He doesn't really work here—he owns the establishment, but I'm the one who really runs it, so…"

Edward senses that pushing more will lead to suspicion and switches to his cover. "Well, then, roses, please. The type you give to a pretty girl."

"How many?"

"A baker's dozen?"

"Isn't that bad luck?"

"She'll only get twelve. The thirteenth is for you," he says, unable to resist adding a playful wink.

Tanya smiles. "I'd be charmed if you weren't gifting me with something from my own establishment."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm trying to charm someone else then."

As Tanya prepares his flowers, Edward's mind whirs. As soon as he's left the florist's, he makes his way to various venues in town, inquiring as casually as he can about Riley.

He gets the same answer every time. Everyone knows that he is Tanya's boyfriend and works at the florist with her, as people in small towns seem to know these sorts of details about everyone.

But no one has actually _seen_ Riley Checkhov. It's only when he speaks to Lauren Mallory that he gets the breakthrough he wants. It turns out the only person who has seen or talked to Riley is the same person who could give him a run for his money when it comes to evasiveness: Leah Clearwater.

—~—

When Edward and Bella meet up again later that night, both are enthusiastic to share the information they've acquired. Edward's is more substantial, but nonetheless, as they write their daily report, they rediscover their rapport through working.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Bella says, once they're finished. She wants to say something reassuring, that it's not because of the spell, it was just her being odd. She doesn't think it was the spell, but then again, not knowing you're under the spell seems to be one of the characteristics of it, so how can she really know anything? And if there's one thing Bella hates, it's not getting a sure answer. It's why she took this job in the first place, the irony being that the job is now the reason she's doubting everything, including herself.

Edward smiles easily. "Don't worry about it. You seemed a little stressed, so," he holds out a bouquet of roses. "I got you these."

"You're giving me flowers because I seemed stressed?" she asks warily, thinking that _surely_ this must be a sign that he's under the spell.

He shrugs and laughs. "I got flowers because they were my excuse to stop by the florists. I'm giving them to you because…" He shrugs once more and meets her eyes. "There's no one else I could give them to." But the way he says it, makes her think that he saying there is no one else he _would_ give them to, not in this town, not anywhere.

It fills her with the kind of warmness that should make her happy, but now only brings forth all the doubts from before, so she quickly changes the topic. "So, there's something I have to tell you."

He frowns but says, "Okay, go ahead."

"I… I'm going to stay with my dad for the rest of the trip."

"What?"

"Yeah. He heard that lie I told that I was moving here and thought it was true. He asked me to live with him, but I told him I wasn't moving, and he just… he looked so sad. So I decided to stay with him for the rest of the trip—I think it'll be a good way for me and him to spend some time together," she says, not adding that it is also a good way for her and Edward to spend some time apart.

The frown hasn't faded from Edward's face but other than that, he tries to remain impassive. "So you're going to stay with Charlie?"

"Yeah."

"Not in the room next door." Is she imagining the disappointment in his voice or is he just not bothering to hide it?

"No."

"Okay. When are you leaving?"

"I'll move my stuff over in the morning."

"Okay. I'll drive you, " he says, but his words are distracted, his mind elsewhere so Bella quietly says, "Thanks. I'm going to pack and go to bed," and slips out of the room.

This is the right decision, she thinks. Isn't it?

It is, she decides. It's not only a way to get closer to Charlie, but it's a good way for her and Edward to get some distance while things are so confusing between them. She's been tricked before, with Jake, into thinking someone's feelings were real, only to have magic trump it. If she were to find out whatever had happened between her and Edward was just because of the spell—she doesn't think she could take it. So, contrary to her nature, she'll instead avoid it for as long as she can.

But is it really the right decision? She doubts herself again. She can't help but feel like she's abandoning Edward. No matter what, they are a team and, while this is merely a readjustment of location, she can't help but feel like the distance is declaring something she may not have really wanted to say.

But Edward recognizes running when he sees it—he did it before, inexcusably, just when things were getting serious between the two of them. He knows how miserable he was in the months that followed, and if Bella's idiom is once bitten, twice shy, then his is that he's learned from his mistakes.

Edward has that keen, sharp gift of being able to battle all doubt when he thinks he's correct about something. Even if he himself is wrong, his confidence in his belief can often make you doubt your own. It's precisely this sort of convoluted thinking he incites in people while still managing to keep track of everything himself, that makes him rather tricky. So as his thoughts thunder on, it doesn't matter whether he's correct or not in believing that neither he nor Bella are under the spell, just that all his future assumptions and actions will be undertaken with that belief in mind.

In movies and novels and dramatizations, there's often a poetic moment, accompanied by an evocative soundtrack, that marks the moment of the main character's revelation.

Well, insert your emo song of choice here.

It's not slow, it's not artful, it's nothing spectacularly refined or indescribably beautiful. Love falls upon Edward swiftly, like a slap to the back that helps him swallow whatever he was choking on, and now he can breathe (and think) freely.

Because in that moment, Edward realizes that he'll forgive Bella anything. Of course, this revelation came after he found out there wasn't really much to forgive since she had never actually been with Jacob, but still, it's the sentiment that counts.

And he knows now, with a solid sureness—the kind that Rosalie was talking about earlier—that it doesn't matter if Bella confuses or irritates or frustrates him, if she rains down ruin upon his career, if she invites Armageddon into her arms and then tosses it to him. He will happily pull the sky down for her himself. But he's hers. Before this damn spell, in, out, through it, and forever after it.

Now, he's just got to figure out how to make _her_ see it.

* * *

Grad school, traveling, food poisoning, life, sleep, blah blah blah. You've heard all the excuses and you're still here reading even after I said I'd update more often and then... didn't, haha. Can't tell you how much that means to me.

As always, I take a few liberties with the stories, legends and myths I use to fit the story.

Come follow me on Twitter, I'm whatsmynom. I post teasers there, but mostly talk about what I'm reading/doing/watching/loving/hating. Also, I'll be posting some stuff in the near future so put me on author alert if you wish :)

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